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Frahm, Robert: Covington, JimmieWhat's Happening in Minimum Competency Testing.Phi Delta Kappa, Bloomington, Ind.7959p.Phi Delta Kappa, P.O. Box 789, Bloomington, Indiana47402 ($2.50 plus $1.00 handling fee on orders lessthan $5.00)

MF01/PC03 Plus Postage.Academic Achievement: Administrator Attitudes;Educational Assessment: Slementary SecondaryEducation; *Graduation Requirements: *MinimumCompetency Testing: Parent Attitudes: PerformanceBased Education; Public Opinion: Public SchoolSystems; *State Legislation: *State Programs: StudentOpinion; Teacher Attitudes: *Testing Problems:*Testing Programs

ABSTRACTAn examination of the current status of minimum

competency testing is presented in a series of short essays, whichdiscuss case studies of individual school systems and stateapproaches. Sections are also included on the viewpoints of criticsand supporters, teachers and teacher organizations, principals andstudents, and the federal government. Minimum competency testingprograms in Gary, Indiana; Chicago, Illinois: Denver, Colorado:Omaha, Nebraska; St. Paul, Minnesota; Oregon, and Bakersfield,California are discussed. State laws and regulations for Florida,North Carolina, Virginia, New York, Arizona, Nevada, Tennessee, andl'entucky, are explained. General conclusions are reached; (1) themaior strength of minimum competency testing programs is theidentification of specific learning objectives, especially in theelementary grades: (2) the effect of high school graduation tests is

unclear: (3) the full impact of the programs is uncertain: and (4)the effect of emphasizing basic skills upon below-average studentsand high-achieving students is as yet unanswered. (MH)

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BYRobert Frahm,

Jimmie; Co*ington"PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THISMATERIAL HAS BEEN ANTED BY ,

ow-

INTRODUCTION BYChris Pipho

TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCESINFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)."

U S DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH,EDUCATICN &WELFARENATIONAL INSTITUTE OF

EDUCATION

THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIvFO FROMTHE PERSON OR OPr,ANIZA tiON ORIGIN.ATING IT POINTS ul VIEW OR OPINIONSSTATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRE-SENT OFFICIAL NATIONAL INSTITUTE OFEDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY

What's Happening in MinimumCompetency Testing

ByRobert Frahm

Jimmie Covington

Phi Delta KappaBloomington, Indiana

Cover design: Vaheh Shirinian

©1979 Robert Frahm and Jimmie CovingtonAll rights reserved.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 79-88140ISBN 047367-7684

Printed in the United States of America

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Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part I: Minimum Competency Testing: Views from the Field 5

Competency Testing: Some Questions 6

Seven Case Studies 12

Gary: A Focus or Basics 12

Chicago: Reading Skills, An Eighth-Grade Hurdle 14

Denver: The Granddaddy 16

Omaha: Seven Tests of Competence 18

St. Paul: An Alternative 20Oregon: A Competency Smorgasbord 21

Bakersfield: Some Troubling Data 25

Part II: Minimum Competency Testing: State Approaches 29

Overview of the States 30

Laws and Regulations 33

Florida 33

North Carolina 34

Virginia 36

New York 38

Arizona 39

Nevada 41

Tennessee 42

Kentucky 43

The Critics 44

The Supporters 48

Teachers and Teacher Organizations Respond 51

The School Scene 53

The Federal Scene 55

Conclusion 56

Introduction

by Chris PiphoAssociate DirectorResearch and Information DepartmentEducation Commission of the States

In 1976 what is now known as minimum competency testing began to bemandated by state legislation or by state board of education policy state-ments. At first, it was known as a competency-based high school graduationtesting progiam. Since 1976, however, the movement has evolved fromsimply a high school graduation testing mandate to an early warning test sys-tem for identifying students needing remedial assistance. Many states now re-quire a competency test or a minimum competency assurance at one or moregrades at the elementary, junior high, or senior high school levels.

Today there are 36 states that have taken either legislative or state boardaction to mandate that schools, on a statewide basis, identify the minimumbasic or life skills that students should attain during elementary and second-ary school. While 36 states have taken some form of action, all of the resthave studied th issue through a legislative interim study, a state.. board ofeducation task force, or some other form of study group or commission.

A majority of the states require that high school graduation be based onpassing a minimum competency test. New Mexico and Idaho have a localoption that is applicable to portions of their testing program. Local districtsthat do use the state test may give a high school diploma with a state boardseal affixed. None of these states, with the exception of the Florida andCalifornia early exit programs, has removed any of the traditional carnegieunit or course requirements for high school graduation.

In 1979 eight states introduced minimum competency legislation, butnone of the bills has yet been enacted. In some cases, these pending bills mod-ify programs already in existence. For example, in Colorado SB 153 wouldhave mandated a test at every grade level, superseding a program, that calledfor local districts to follow only certain standards if they wished to have acompetency testing program for high school graduation. In Tennessee pend-ing legislation would rescind the high school graduation portion of thepresent mandate. In other states such as Arizona and Indiana, bills similar toones introduced in previous years again have been introduced, but none hasyet been enacted.

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In two states, Minnesota and Wisconsin, the state superintendent of publicinstruction or the state board of education has announced that the issue isnot a state problem but is one for local districts to solve with the assistanceof the states. Presumably, there will be no statewide mandate in these states.

At the beginning of the 1979 legislative sessions, several states experiencedleadership changes. In Wyoming and Tennessee, new chief state school of-ficers, not sympathetic with minimum competency rules enacted prior totheir taking office, have assumed control. It remains to be seen if the stateboard ruling enacted in Wyoming in late 1977 will be rescinded or if the Ten-nessee testing program will be modified.

While changes of leadership can potentially change policy direction, thecourt challenges to minimum competency testing now pending in Floridaand North Carolina may hold more potential for change. Hearings in theFlorida court case are expected to be completed prior ; the end of the 1979school year. A similar case pending in North Carolina is also nearing its con-clusion. It is expected that these lower court decisions will be appealed nomatter which side wins.

In the spring of 1979, it would appear that interest in minimum compe-tency testing at the state policy level has lessened. Most of the concern is nowbeing directed to implementation by state departments of education orschool districts. However, since the competency testing movement has neverhad a large measure of support from educators, those who were opposed tothe mandates prior to enactment now have directed their efforts to modifyingthe implementation programs. Debate over the need for minimum compe-tency testing seems to be lessening. The key issues now seem to be remedialprograms, the cost of such remediation programs, the possibility of discrim-ination against certain minority students or special education students, andthe need for teacher inservice training and better instructional materials.

While the programs being implemented are unique to each state, they allhave much in common. Writing goal statements in the basic skill subjectareas, field testing assessment items, and designing remedial programs arecommon tasks undertaken by states and local school districts.

In California the law calls for the state department of education to pre-pare sample goal statements and sample test items for local school districtsto use. Several volumes of implementation manuals have been produced. InMassachusettes three statewide teacher task forces have worked on the cri-teria to be used in developing the goal statements in mathematics, reading,and writing. In general, most other state departments of education and localschool districts have gone through similar processes or are about to do so.

Because of the rapid development of the minimum competency testingmovement, inservice workshops on implementation problems and the evalua-tion of programs are popular with local school districts and state officials.The most frequently asked questions are: Is it successful? How has the pro-gram changed instrtiction? What are the implementation problems? Whilethese questions are easily asked, answers are not readily available. Very fewpeople have had the opportunity to visit in depth with local school districtsand state departments implementing these programs. A few people have at-tended workshops where local district people have described their programsor reviewed some of their materials. Again, no careful analysis has been madeof the implementation problems and processes,

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The two reports presented here by Robert Frahm and Jimmie Covingtonare based on nearly three months of visiting states and local school districtsimplementing the programs while they served as Ford Foundation Fellows inEducational Journalism. They are both seasoned journalists specializing ineducation. What they have written is probably the most compiehensive probeof minimum competency testing to date. Frahm's observation that no oneseems to be evaluating what they're doing or even creating an evaluatingprocess is particularly pertinent. Through the questions they asked and theobservations they made as they visited with state and local officials, you willhave an opportunity to formulate your own opinion about the minimumcompetency testing movement.

Chris PiphoMarch 1979

Part I

Minimum Competency Testing:Views From The Field

by Robert FrahmEducation ReporterThe Journal TimesRacine,Wisconsin

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Competency Testing: Some Questions

None too optimistic about her prospects, Debbie Dean nonetheless showsup early at lecture hall 116, grabs a seat in the front row, and waits for direc-tions she has heard before.

"Where it says course, put down consumerism," says a teacher's aide.`Consumerism is c-o-n-s-u-m-e-r-i-s-m."

"I've taken it five times," says Debbie, a 17-year-old senior at WestsideHigh School in Omaha, Nebraska. "I just can't learn it. I want to graduate atsemester. I want out."

Before she gets out, however, Debbie, like students in cities such as Chica-go; Denver; Gary, Indiana; or Bakersfield, California, faces something that isbecoming a familiar graduation requirement, the minimum competency test.

Faced with mounting criticism of graduates, schools are demanding thatstudents demonstrate they can do such things as balance a checkbook, solvesimple math problems, write a paragraph, or read at a sixth-grade level.

As reasonable as that may sound (Who can argue a graduate shouldn't becompetent?), the idea raises qv lsthns that could trouble schools as much asthe consumer exam troubles Debbie Dean. In fact, minimum competencytesting already has led to lawsuits in Florida and North Carolina. Elsewhere,it stirs debate between ardent backers and hard-line critics. Chris Pipho, aresearcher with the Denver-based Education Commission of the States (ECS)who has been monitoring the competency testing movement says, "I don'tknow of anyone in the last two years who's changed his mind on this issue."

Critics and supporters alike, however, apparently agree on the sources ofthe competency testing trend. It comes in the wake of rising school costs, re-ports of declines in student achievement, and public criticism of high schoolgraduates. In a 1978 Gallup Poll, 49% of those surveyed gave public schoolsa grade of C or worse, compared with 32% in 1974. By a more than 2-1margin, the public in the same poll favored promoting children from grade tograde only if they can pass examinations.

It is hardly surprising, then, that minimum competency testing, somethingthat seemed a startling idea just a few years ago in places like Florida andOregon, spread rapidly. According to ECS's Pipho, 36 states now require min-imum competence standards in some form. In addition, local districts likeOmaha, Gary, and Bakersfield have set their own standards.

The trend signals a loss of faith in schools, said George Weber, associatedirector of the Council for Basic Education in Washington, D.C. "You can'tassume a person who got a passing grade in a math course can do math," he

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said. "You can't assume a person who got a passing grade in a typing coursecan type. In other words, we have schools without standards."

If so, is competency testing the answer? Skeptics abound. Said ArthurWise of the Rand Corporation in Washington, D.C., "I would grant educationhas become somewhat soft in recent years, but I think we as a nation arc wellon the way to repairing the softness without competency testing ... . It'slike a cheap fix."

With most states not scheduled to start competency programs until the1980s, educators have turned to some of the early starters Gary, Denver,Bakersfield, Omaha, and Oregon for hints on the future of competencytesting. But even in those places the evidence is skimpy, and questions re-main.

First, what is competence?"One of the real problems of the whole competency movement is the

definition of the term," said Robert Gourley of the Northwest Regional Edu-cational Laboratory in Portland. Indeed, what passes for competence dif-fers sharply from one school system to another:

In Gary, Denver, and Bakersfield, schools focus competency tests onbasics reading, writing, and math. Gary also includes a speech test, whileDenver tests spelling.

In Chicago, students won't get out of eighth grade until they master80% of 273 reading skills covering such things as pronunciation and phonetics.

In Florida, students must pass statewide functional literacy tests thatapply communication and math skills to everyday problems.

In Oregon's Lincoln County, schools list 243 minimum skills, includingsome like this: "Form ... hypotheses about urban locations and growth, pat-terns of land use, urban socio-economic characteristics, urban size andspacing, and use theories to account for settlement and land-usc patterns."

In Omaha, a student demonstrates competence by writing three para-graphs with no more than five errors. Albany, Oregon, requires a 100-wordessay, allowing up to five errors in spelling, three in capitalization, and threein punctuation. In Denver, a student takes a multiple-choice test on grammarand punctuation.

In St. Paul, students collect letters, testimony, and even telegrams at-testing to their competence in nal-life situations like finding a job or doingcommunity work.

Sometimes the requirements seem questionable. Albany, Oregon, schoolsonce required students to "maintain personal cleanliness," a goal studentsmet by taking showers 80% of the time after physical education class.

Some critics suggest schools delude themselves by trying to identify whatskills are required to function competently. "Can anybody say, indeed, thatskills of this level are what are required to be a truck ciriver or engineer?"said Gene Glass, director of the Laboratory of Educational Research at theUniversity of Colorado, Boulder.

Gordon Cawelti, executive direetor of the Association for Supervision andCurriculum Development in Washington. D.C., said, "The competency move-ment is dying, 'What is an educated person?' You've had people do that intel-lectual exercise for a long time, starting with Socrates."

Second, how high should a minimum be?.7;th-don McAndrew, superintendent of schools in Gary, sums up the dilem-

ma: "if you don't fail some students, have you raised the standard? If you

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fail too many, is it politically acceptable?"Neither Gary nor anyone else has denied many diplomas so far. Gary

schools, for instance, rejected 22 seniors out of about 4,800 graduates in1977 and 1978. Denver officials estimate 1.5 to 2% of the senior class fails.Omaha's Westside High School denied diplomas to four students out of 1,600seniors during the last two years. In Oregon, Gordon Ascher, associa e super-intendent of the state education department says, "We don't know of a singleinstance where someone failed because of competencies." Actually, tuere arescattered instances, but most schools are apparently like those in Albany,Oregon, where none of last spring's 550 seniors failed the tests.

Many competency tests are rated about a sixth- or seventh-grade level,prompting skeptics to contend they are too easy. "If you can't pass that,"said a Denver senior, "you have the IQ of an artichoke." A Parkrose, Oregon,remedial reading teacher said, "Too often, students feel m:-:mum and maxi-mum mean the same thing. Once they've got that, that's the end." An,' .1QeNathan, a former administrator at the St. Paul Open School, contends thatthe low standards could backfire. "People will say they're paying for 12 yearsof education and getting seven or eight."

Ralph Tyler, a distinguished educator and researcher who chaired a studypanel that wrote a report criticizing the Florida competency testing plan,paid the setting of a single minimum standard makes no sense. "It is as )adtor the public to decide these things in detail as it is for the public to de,:idehow doctors should cure cancer. The decision varies with the individualpatient."

Third, is competency testing legal?The Florida and North Catalina lawsuits are the only ones so far, but

Merle McClung, a lawyer with the Center for Law and Education in Cam-bridge, Massachusetts, thinks others are likely. In Tampa, 10 black studentscontend the test examines skills they were never taught, is not a reliable in-strument, and unfairly penalizes black students who spent earlier years insegregated schools. In North Carolina, plantiffs allege the state testing pro-gram excludes blacks, poor whites, and Indians from the job market, SaidMcClung: "'We've had literally hundreds of requests for our articles dealingwith the legal implications, from school districts and from attorneys."

Fourth, how does competency testing affect curriculum?The answer remains unclear, although critics like the Rand Corporation's

Wise fear statewide tests could lead schnols to teach for basic skills only,thereby sacrificing things like science, history, or music. "What you do iscause local school people to become obsessed with the test. The desire tobring about good performance on the test will drive out the rest of the cur-riculum."

Even at the local level, educators worry Itat teachers might focus theirinstruction too narrowly that is, teach for the tests. Gary SuperintendentMcAndrew admits there is danger of abuse and says some elementary schoolshad suspiciously high scores on basic skills progress tests, but he said theproblem does not appear to be serious.

Teachers in some districts make another complaint: Competency testingproduces mountains of paperwork and takes too much time. "It's a testingpiogram, not a learning tool," said an Albany, Oregon, social studies teacher."All our effort goes into pushing them over that hurdle .. .. We haven'tchanged teaching techniques, introduced any new theoties, provided any newavenues for students to pick up skills."

Despite predictions of a narrowing curriculum, there is little evidence ofthat so far. Denver schools, for example, list 954 junior high and high schoolcourses. Parkrose, Oregon, schools report increasing enrollment in advancedmath and science courses since competency testing began.

Perhaps the most profound curriculum changes have occurred in Chicagoschools under a promotion policy requiring eighth-graders to master 80% of273 reading skills listed in a program called Continuous Progress/MasteryLearning (CPML). Administrators say the policy identifies and helps young-sters who have unusual difficulty, but some teachers complain about theamount of paperwork. Said one teacher: "I had to change my whole method.... (Students) are spending their time filling out ditto forms on pronuncia-tion, phonetics, parts of speech, rather than reading a story for enjoyment."Chris Nugent, director of the Citizens Schools Committee, a school watch-dog group, fears schools may become obsessed with testing. "Parents say mykid reads at 5.3 (fifth grade, third month), not my kid just finished Char-lotte's Web."

Finally, does competency testing improve schools? -"I don't think there is any doubt about it. The answer is yes," say back-

ers like the Council for Basic Education's Weber. On the other side are skep-tics like University of Colorado researcher Glass: "They (competence tests)are of no value at all to teachers, no value to the kids."

But what evidence is there? Solid research is scarce. Some schools have in-complete data; others have none.

In Denver, where the Proficiency and Review (P&R) test has been givenfor 16 years, officials have done no research on whether the tests improve thecaliber of high schoolers, according to Allan Ilosler, supervisor of testing. "Wedidn't collect data then (16 years ago) the way we do now," he said. ButHosier said the P&R test was not designed to improve achievement. "The pur-pose was to guarantee to business and industry our diploma would have somevalidity." However, even though the P&R grew out of a 1958 survey thatfound local businesses dissatisfied with the caliber of graduates, Denverschools stopped conducting such surveys in the early 1960s.

Oregon, the first state to venture into competency testing, also has littledata, said Gordon Ascher, associate superintendent in the Oregon Departmentof Educ,qion. "Nobody bothered a few years back to set up an evaluationdesign," said Ascher. "We never said what problems the program was intend-ed to cure." Ascher hopes for some results in early 1979 from a University ofOregon study, but he said it will be difficult even then to draw conclusionsbecause few districts gathered information about graduates prior to compe-tency testing.

Occasionally, schools cite unusual data. In Parkruse, Oregon, for instance,schools point to a rise in scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) sincecompetency tests began. But whether the SAT, a college entrance exam, in-dicates success with a minimum skills program is questionable. Similarly,Gary administrators are fond of citing figures showing a 73% passing rate lastyear for seniors taking the U.S. Steel Corporation's apprenticeship examina-tion, compared to a 42% rate in 1971. What the administrators don't say isthat the passing rate was up to 65% in 1973, a year before Gary's compe-tency program was proposed.

Gary schools, however, also are watching seniors' scores on a nationalstandardized test. The results are mixed, with reading and math scores risingbetween 1974 and 1977, then falling in 1978,

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At least two districts have done before-and-after tests of competency pro-grams, hoping to rate their effectiveness. In Omaha, Westside High Schoolassistant principal James Findley gave Westside's tests to a sampling of 1976seniors, hoping to compare results with those of 1977 seniors, the first tograduate under the school's requirements. Findley's project is not finished.The Kern High School District in Bakersfield, California, gave its reading andmath competency tests to random samples of seniors both before and aftercompetency testing began. The result: Seniors under the new requirementsscored either the same as or slightly lower than those not under the require-ment.

One of the most frequently cited arguments in favor of competenev test-ing is that it identifies and assists students who need help. But MargaretSilberberg, a Minneapolis psychologist who has studied research on remedialreading, raises a troubling point: "We have no evidence at all (that) remedia-tion helps." Although students made short-term gains, she said, "when we'dgo back six months later we found they were right back where they started.... Certain remedial programs teach kids to take tests, but as far as enhanc-ing academic skills, they don't work.

"Competency testing to me has an analogy that could be used with heightwho's average, who's above and below. You say the kids who are below

average you're going to stretch. The presumption is you ( an tutor them intobeing above average . . . .

"It's a spurious kind of situation, but it's one that sells. Nobody does afollow-up to find out what the hell it did."

Still, remedial work is "the great hidden cost in competency-based pro-grams," according to a National Institute of Education (NIE) study by BarryAnderson of Washington University in St. Louis. According to Anderson, theState of Washington estimates costs of up to $94 million for reading andmath programs. Michigan, meanwhile, will spend $31 million this year,Florida $26 million, and New Jersey $68 million for remedial programs.

Some local programs, too, have high price tags. By one estimate, the36,000-student Gary district will spend $1 million this year. In Racine, Wis-consin, the 25,000-student district budgeted $892,000 for the 1978-79 min-imum standards program.

Districts like Racine and Gary, however, are putting some of their moneyinto remedial programs at elementary and junior high schools, a move favoredby many educators, including Ernest Boyer, U.S. Commissioner of Education."There's a lot of evidence the teaching of reading and writing is becoming atop priority, and I think that's good," said Boyer. "Students should be as-sessed in the first few grades to determine if they are mastering fundamentals,as contrasted to measuring students in eleventh or twelfth grade and droppingan evaluation time bomb on them at a time when the possibility for remedia-tion is all but lost."

Critics and supporters alike agree that competency testing has one bene-ficial effect: It forces schools to look at what they have been doing. AlthoughNIE researcher William Spady believes competency testing has done little toreform education, he says it has, at least, led to specific teaching goals, some-thing many schools have lacked. "You could go into classroom after class-room and not discover what it is teachers are teaching, or why, and they arenot sure," he said.

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However, it educators and citizens do examine their schools, they will findnothing terribly simple about them, not even the assumption that undergirdsthe competency movement that student achievement is declining.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), one of the mostfrequently cited reports on student achievement, gives a mixed picture. In a1974 writing survey and a 1975 reading survey, the NAEP found that 13- and17-year-old students wrote worse paragraphs and made less accurate infer-ences from what they read than did their predecessors four years earlier.However, 9-year-olds in the same surveys improved in both reading andwriting. In addition, 13- and 17-year-olds did no worse on "literal compre-hension" skills in 1975 than 1971, and 17-year-olds actually improved theirperformance on NAEP's functional literacy test.

Schools, however, take little comfort in scattered achievement increases,particularly in light of declines on other tests, including the SAT. A panelcommissioned to examine the SAT scores found much of the decline between1963 and 1970 could be attributed to changing population seeking admissionto college. However, the panel found the declines continued after 1970, eventhough the test-taking population stabilized.

Concern over the apparent drop in student achievement is widespiead.Senator George McGovern has proposed the creation of a National Commis-sion on Literacy, saying that if illiteracy remains unchecked, "an already de-teriorating situation will become an educational disaster and a national dis-grace." Among other things, the federal government "should formulateoptional national criteria for competency testing," McGovern said.

Given the evidence from the SAT, NAEP, and other tests, "it is hard toavoid the conclusion that students over age 10 or 11 are in fact learning lessthan they once did in the areas that schools have traditionally emphasized,"wrote Harvard sociologist Christopher Jencks in Working Papers magazine.

But Jencks and others wonder whether competency testing misses theproblem by emphasizing basic, low-level skills, when surveys like NAEP showthat students have more serious problems with high-level skills, such as under-standing an author's main idea.

"We must find ways of- motivating students to go beyond the basics,"Jencks writes. "We must convince them that knowledge is really worthacquiring and that systematic, rigorous thought is superior to intuition. Thisis not a matter of establishing 'minimum standards.' It is a matter of creatingrespect for 'maximum standards'."

NAEP Director Roy Forbes concurs, saying minimum competency testingmay be focusing on skills that are too basic. "It's a complex issue," saidForbes, "and people looking for simple answers don't like to hear the com-plex questions."

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Seven Case Studies

Gary: A Focus on Basics

Like a rocky, treacherous path, the paragraph loomed before him."Can . .. old . .. people .. . do ... important . .. work . . .." He treaded

slowly, kicking the first words, like small stones, out of his way one at a time.The terrain got rougher.

"At eighty-nine, Michelangelo painted some of his finest canvasses ..."the paragraph continued. His voice barely audible, the youth stepped past"Michelangelo," stumbling on "painted" (he said "pointed"), and halted at"canvasses."

Teacher Vera Hooper rolled that one out of the way for him. He contin-ued haltingly, wringing his hands under the table, sometimes bobbing hishead toward the page, as if to shake a reluctant word off his tongue.

The youth, a 16-year-old sophomore at Lew Wallace High School, reads atabout a fourth- or fifth-grade level, said Hooper. He wound up in Hooper'sremedial class because he failed a reading test given to all high school studentsin this steel mill town.

He will take the test again . .. and again ... if he has to. But if he doesn'tpass it mntually, he won't graduate. That is the rule now in Gary, one ofthe first cities in the country to deny diplomas on the basis of academic tests.Gary schools turned down six seniors in 1977 who failed reading or mathe-matics tests and 16 seniors in 1978 who failed reading, math, or writing tests.By 1980 seniors also must pass a speech test.

"In the past, they knew they could graduate and not learn anything. Theonly thing they had to do was show up," said Donald Henderson, an admin-istrative assistant in the 36,000-student district. "We have put a stop to that."

Whether Gary schools have, in fact, stopped turning out incompetent grad-uates is a matter for debate. The tests themselves, designed by local educatorsand rated about the sixth-grade level, draw some skeptics.

"I don't see where they really prepare a child to take his place in the adultworld," said Marie Jernigan, chairman of the Gary NAACP's Education Com-mittee. "What is a child qualified to do with sixth-grade skills?"

Still, the project is an ambitious one. By one estimate, the program thisyear will cost $1 million, much of it for remediel teaL hers and classes at ele-mentary, middle, and high schools. Up to 2,000 one out of four tenth-through twelfth-graders are enrolled in remedial classes, school officialsestimate. Tests also are given to second-, fifth-, and seventh-graders.

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Starting in June, 1979, sixth-graders who fall the fifth-grade tests ,?naseventh-graders who fail the sixth-grade tests, will be held back a grade.

All of this, school officials hope, will begin raising achievement in a districtwhere the average senior in 1Q74 read at a grade level of 8.6 (eighth grade,sixth month) on the Stanford Test of Basic Skills. Ten percent of the 1974class read below the sixth-grade level, the test showed.

Later results are mixed. Gary seniors hit a 9.8 reading average in 1977, butfell to 9.0 in 1978. The math average jumped from 9.0 in 1974 to 9,6 in1977, then back to 9.0. There is one bright spot: The proportion of seniorsreading below sixth-grade level fell to 6% in 1977 and stayed at that mark in1978.

The evidence is scanty, at best, because the program is so new. But evenwithout solid data, the plan appears to be popular. Proponents contendGary's tests motivate slow or lazy students. "They come in and check whenthe next test is going to be," said Eunice Hobbs, basic skills coordinator atRoosevelt High School. "They say, 'I'm poor in fractions' or 'my punctua-tion is bad.' You never heard that before."

Students apparently find little difficulty clearing up such problems. Criticspoint to the small numbers of diplomas denied out of graduating classes of2,400 students. "If I take the same test five times, pretty soon I'm going toremember which ones I got wrong the first time," said Sandra Irons, presidentof the Gary Teachers Union.

School officials counter by saying failing more students not only wouldcost more money for remedial classes, but might anger parents.

"It's one of the fascinating questions," said Gordon McAndrew, Gary'ssuperintendent of schools. "If you don't fail some students, have you raisedthe standard? If you fail too many, is it politically acceptable?"

That is not the only question, however. Will students view the test is amaximum, not a minimum, goal? Said high school reading teacher DaisyFields "After the test is over, it's hard to get them to do anything It'shard for me to get them to understand they should read for themselves, notfor the test." Fields said teachers and students put too much emphasis on thetest, a test she has doubts about. "I've had people at a third-grade level passthe Nst I've had some of my good ones fail it."

Will teachers become obsessed with the test, focusing on it at the expenseof other subjects? McAndrew admit,' there is danger of abuse and said someelementary schools had suspiciQusly high test scores, but he said the problemdoes not appear to be serious.

Will Gary graduates be better prepared for work? Administrators are fondof citing figures showing a 73% passing rate in 1977 for seniors taking theU.S. Steel Corporation's apprenticeship examination, compared with a 42%rate in 1971.

What the administrators don't say is that the passing rate was up to 65% in1973, a year before the Gary's competency program was proposed. A U.S.Steel spokesman said there has been no appreciable change in scores sinceGary's competency program began.

Will test results be used to rate teachers? Administrators and the GaryTeachers Union insist this won't happen. School board member Dr. RuthTaylor doesn't agree. "I think teachers should be under the same micro-scope," she said.

Can schools legally deny diplomas on the basis of one test? In Gary, nolawsuits so far. But, said McAndrew, "The first kid who's got a half dozen

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basketball scholarships waiting (and) who's denied a diploma will mate anexplosion."

Despite such questions, Gary officials remain enthusiastic and are workingon a plan called Competency 2, a project that will require students, startingin 1982, to pass tests in one of five areas: academics, fine arts, business, prac-tical arts, and technical studies. Even more than the current program, theCompetency 2 project is likely to prompt a review of curriculum, a processthat can be a healthy one.

In the meantime, the tests continue to stir debate. "You don't even haveto be smart, not even average (to pass the test)," said one junior. But a 19-year-old senior, who failed the math test twice, said the remedial course hashelpecL "I'm getting pretty good at math," he said. "I'm showing other folkshow to do it now."

Chicago: Reading Skills, An Eighth-Grade Hurdle

The news hit 13-year-old April just as it hit thousands of other eighth-graders last spring. "All the rest of my friends were going to ninth grade andI wasn't. I felt upset," said April, now 14 and still at McCorkle ElementarySchool.

From McCorkle in the heart of Chicago's South Side to Ogden School nearthe Loop to Sauganash School on the wealthy North Side, eighth-gradersabout 15,000 of them or one out of every three found out their readingscores were too low to allow them into high school.

Unlike April, who had moved to Mississippi during the summer, some ofthose 15,000 attended summer classes in an effort to raise their scores enoughfor a ticket to high school. About three out of four succeeded,

Until last spring, Chicago's unofficial policy was to move youngsters to thenext level without regard to specific standards, some officials admit.

"No longer does everyone win and everyone get a prize like Alice in'Wonderland," said Angeline Caruso, associate superintendent for instruction-al services.

At the heart of Chicago's new policy is a 1977 board of education rulingthat requires eighth-graders to master 80% of 273 reading skills listed in aprogram called Continuous Progress/Mastery Learning (CPML).

Under CPML, an elementary school does not consider a child to be a third-grader or fourth-grader, for example, but measures her instead by the numberof skills she has mastered. Each of the 273 skills is taught, then measured by atest, and marked on a student's progress chart a process that some teachersand principals claim results in "attacks of paperwork."

Although CPML was a pilot program more than a decade ago, a number ofschools paid little attention to it until last spring, when the new promotionpolicy threatened graduation ceremonies.

Eighth-graders, however, aren't the only ones whose graduation partiesmight be canceled. Starting in the spring of 1979, Chicago high school grad-uates will be required to pass a minimum skills, urban living test that asksthem to do such things as read a want ad or interpret a telephone bill. Of-ficials predict privately that as many as 1,000 of the city's 30,000 potentialgraduates might be denied diplomas. "It's going to be bloody." said one.

14

But the focus in Chicago appears to be on elementary schools. "You can'tjust wait until kids get to be seniors and tell them you'll give them a test tosee if they graduate," said Caruso. "It's like waiting to tell them they've gotterminal cancer."

Because of the constant testing and reporting required under CPML,youngsters who have unusual difficulty can be spotted early, perhaps evenassigned to special education classes long before the ultimate step of denyingeighth-grade diplomas, said Caruso. Officials also hope CFML will createtougher, more uniform standards throughout the school system, even in poorneighborhoods.

"Poverty is never an excuse for lack of achievement," said Alice Blair,superintendent of the South Side's District 13, the home of McCorkle Schoolwith some of the lowest reading scores in the city.

Blair gained a measure of notori3ty herself by holding back low-achievingstudents even before the systemwide policy was adopted. Blair's approachalso includes insistence on parent involvement, strict discipline and dresscodes, and constant visits to classrooms by supervisors. Blair's iron-fisted ap-proach, and perhaps her notoriety, stir at least a trace of resentment amongsome officials.

"Any stupid administrator can flunk a kid," said Caruso. "The point is,what do you do about him?" What Chicago schools do, said Caruso, is this:They provide additional tutors, put extra reading teachers in schools whosescores are lowest, keep close track of teaching materials, and provide readinglabs at high school for students who still have low scores even after being heldback a year.

The changes already are showing signs of success, said John Wick, directorof research for Chicago schools. Wick points to a slight upturn in the city'saverage reading score for 13-year-olds from 6.6 in 1975 to 7.1 in 1978 onone national standardized test.

Officials see the promotion policy as mandating a strong element of teach-er accountability. Said Caruso "This makes the best teachers and the worstteachers more visible, and that's good." Whether the promotion policy makesstudents, teachers, and principals work harder is a question that remains to beanswered. There are skeptics.

Failing eighth-graders doesn't solve anything, said Billie Paige, a member ofthe board of the Citizens Schools Committee (CSC), a school watchdoggroup. "What they're saying is you're going to make that up in the sameschool system you failed in. Never does anyone blame the school system."

Chris Nugent, CSC executive director, fears schools may become obsessedwith testing. "Parents say my kid reads at 5.3, not my kid just finishedCharlotte's Web."

One teacher complains: "I had to change my whole method .. (Stu-dents) are spending their time filling out ditto forms on pronunciation,phonetics, parts of speech rather than reading a story for enjoyment. I don'tknow whether I'm doing a better job or not. I know I'm filling out a lot offorms."

Still, the promotion policy has won some backers. "I'm the type of personthat if you put pressure on ine I'll work harder," said another teacher. "Itshould have been done a long time ago."

15

Denver: The Granddaddy

Even though she hopes to sing at graduation, Duronda Williams mightfind the ceremony an empty one, all because of a mathematics test she hasn'tbeen able to pass so far. "That's the heaviest thing on your mind," theThomas Jefferson High School senior said of a graduation requirement thatdates back to 1962 the year of the Cuban missile cris;s, John Glenn'sorbital space flight, and Duronda's second birthday.

In many American schools, basic skills testing arrived recently, but DenverPublic Schools boast a program that may be the granddaddy of competencytests, a granddaddy some critics suggest is creaking with age. Called theProficiency and Review (P&R) test, the exam began after schools surveyedlocal businesses in 1958, and found that businesses complained some grad-uates couldn't spell, do math, or even fill out sales slips. "We just hopped onthe bandwagon earlier than anyone else," said one school official.

So, after nearly two decades, what have Denver schools learned? The an-swer is not clear. Said William Dean, assistant commissioner in the ColoradoDepartment of Education: "Nowhere can I get anyone to tell me . May-be it's just institutionalized, and they don't know how to change it."

Administrators in the 68,000-student system defend the P&R, a multiple-choice test covering reading, math, language, and spelling. "No youngster canoccupy a , chair, bore a teacher to death, get a D-minus, and graduate," saidAllen Hosler, supervisor of testing.

Once given to twelfth-graders, the test was moved back to ninth grade inthe early 1970s, giving students more chances to pass it and allowing moretime for remedial help, one benefit of P&R, according to Hosler.

Still, several questions arise. One of the most frequent is whether the testis too easy. Administrators rate it about an eighth-grade level, but some con-tend it is easier. Only 1.5 to 2% of the senior class is denied diplomas eachyear. "If you can't pass that, you have the IQ of an artichoke," said onesenior.

Even so, nearly half of the 1978 ninth-graders failed each part of the testafter two tries. In the past, the pressure to pass more students led to cheatingat some schools, alleges Stirling Cooper, a former researcher who was trans-ferred to a teaching job after he publicly criticized testing practices.

At one high school, "we had evidence someone was erasing answers andputting correct ones in," said Cooper. Officials deny those charges. A self-styled gadfly, Cooper called the test "Our primary tool for lying to thepublic .. .. (Schools) use the P&R to say things are in good shape and gettingbetter."

Despite those allegations, the P&R has run into no organized oppositionexcept for an unsuccessful attempt in the Colorado legislature to abolish thetest in 1975. That attempt, however, did lead to a law requiring schools tooffer immediate remedial help to those who fail competency tests.

Does Denver's test lead to such help? Consider Duronda Williams. She fail-ed the math test three times, but said she didn't get any help until a tutor gotin touch with her this fall.

Although many P&R failures are assigned to remedial or low-level courses,those classes are not directly tied to the P&R, and officials will not guaranteea student who fails the test will wind up there. In fact, Duronda was assigned

16

to three algebra classes in ninth and tenth grades, getting Ds in each one. Shefailed geometry in eleventh grade.

State Senator Regis Groff, author of the 1975 law, said Duror :a shouldhave had remedial classes or tutors every semester after she failed the test."If she hasn't had that, the district is in violation of the law."

At Jefferson, seniors like Duronda get help from tutor Jeannie Lewis.Some schools, however, don't have such tutors, and Lewis said the only in-structions she got when she started the job this year came from a secretary."They've been giving these things for 16 years," she said. "You'd thinkthey'd have this perfected."

Some administrators suggest Duronda's case is an isolated one, but hercounselor, William Miller, doesn't think so. "Citywide," he said, "she's got alot of company."

Gerald Cavanaugh, former supervisor of evaluation, said the P&R forcesteachers, from elementary to high school, to reemphasize basic skills. At highschools, computer printouts of test results help pinpoint each student's prob-lems, he said. "When kids leave here, there are damn few who don't havebasic skills."

Still, whether the test helps raise achievement levels in Denver schools re-mains uncertain. Hos ler said there is insufficient data. The latest nationalstandardized test results show a slight decline in tenth-grade scores since1975. Last spring's sophomores scorcd roughly at national averages in read-ing, math, and language tests. But those scores may be inflated because only70% of the class took that national test.

However, said Hosier, the P&R should not be tied to the achievementquestion. "That wasn't its purpose," he said. "The purpose was to guaranteeto business and industry our diploma would have some validity."

So how do business and industry feel? "They (applicants) have problemseven adding a column of figures," said Marcheta Henrich, a recruiter forMountain Bell, the area's largest employer. She said the company does noteven consider whether an applicant has a high school diploma, but gives itsown basic skills test. Nearly half of the 1,248 applicants in the latest round oftesting failed, she said. "Most business people have the same problem ... . Weare suffering because of the product that's coming to us."

Former testing supervisor Cavanaugh offered this advice on setting up acompetency testing program at a recent conference in Nebraska:

Make a trial run. Otherwise, officials might be shocked at the numberwho fail, he said.

Start early. Denver schools, in fact, are devising tests for third- andsixth-graders.

Set aside money for refresher courses. Neither Cavanaugh nor other of-ficials, however, will estimate what Denver spends.

Denver schools may reap an extra benefit from the renewed interest intesting. Several publishing companies want to revise Denver's test, originallyproduced by California Testing Bureau and later bought by Denver schools.Hosier said the companies hope to sell it, with Denver getting royalties.

In addition, the P&R has attracted hundreds of educators to Denver, thedistrict says. "It must hve something going for it," said Assistant Superinten-dent LaRue Belcher, "or we wouldn't have people spend so much money tosee us."

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Omaha: Seven Tests of Competence

At most schools, graduation means you've spent a few years behind a deskpiling up hours and credits. Here at Westside High School, it also meansyou've answered questions lilce:

Which can of Brand Z peaches'is the best bargain?A. 6 oz. at $.38 D. 24 oz. at $1.20B. 8 oz. at $.42 E. Ncne of theseC. 12 oz. at $.56

OrExpress 7/5 as a decimal.OrTrue or false? In a democracy you would expect to find; The Lutheran

Church is declared by Congress to be an illegal organization.If you think the questions are easy, most Westside students agree. At this

2.200-studt.nt school in an affluent Omaha suburb, about nine out of 10 passmost of the tests on their first try.

It is the one student in 10, the youngster who is not among the 80% herewho are headed for college who is the focus of the competency tests, saidPrincipal James Tangdall. "It's a remedial program, and the carrot out there isthe diploma .... It certainly isn't going to help the kid going to the Univer-sity of Nebraska or Yale or Harvard."

The seeds of the competency tests were planted in 1972, before compe-tency testing became a national movement, when a group of Westside teach-ers and administrators rewrote the school's goals. The group restructuredgraduation requirements, adding tests in reading, math, writing, speech, con-sumerism, democratic process, and problem solving.

The tests, given since 1977, apparently have been quietly accepted here,where parents and schools are more likely to haggle about an elementaryschool textbook censorship controversy or about the free time in studentschedules at high school.

Not that there aren't critics. Some say the tests are too easy and don'tmean much. "Most minimum competency programs are a publicity stunt,"said one teacher. But many observers, including school board presidentRobert Berkshire, like them. "We have a lot af feeling in our district thatwe're neglecting the basics," he said. "I tell you, there are a lot of people withwhom it (testing) strikes a responsive chord."

Why has it won support? One explanation is that it started locally, saidJames Findley, Westside assistant principal. "A lot of legislatures, and schoolboards think they can legislate competency ... . We had no pressure fromoutside. Our program grew from within."

Its chief benefit, Findley said, is the help it offers struggling students.Those who fail the reading test wind up in remedial classes. Failures in a pre-liminary math test in ninth-grade wolt with a tutor to get ready for theregular math exam in eleventh grade. For the other tests, students may seekhelp from classroom teachers, homeroom advisers, or aides. No tests are givenlater than the junior year.

"It's a gut feeling that the bottom 10% are leaving this building better pre-

18

pared than before," Findley said. Gut feelings aside, Westside has no specificscores on national achievement tests, for instance, to compare students beforeand after the installation of minimum competency programs. Findley did giveWestside's tests to a sampling of 1976 seniors, hoping to compare results withthose of 1977 seniors, but the project is not completed.

Findley, however, does say the tests have led, for example, to more em-phasis on writing and a surge in enrollment in a consumer course. LaNetaCar lock, a business teacher, said enrollment doubled in the consumer course."I am appalled the way kids cannot figure the interest they'll be charged oreven dc a bank statement," she said.

Even F.. ), hardly anyone fails. In two years, out of about 1,600 graduates,only kw.; failed to receive diplomas because of the tests. "I never got aroundto takin.; '1," said Mike Mashl, one of those four. "I'm not too hot scholarly-wise," said Mike, who did return to finish the tests and later joined theMarines.

Like Mike, most who fail simply put off the tests, said Findley. As dead-lines approach, 65 or 70 seniors still have one or more to complete, he said."In February, March, and April, we'll have seniors down there busting theirrear ends to get to that minimum level."

Some teachers say the school tries too hard to pass everybody. "It's awful-ly hard not to pass," said math teacher Roger Hoffman. "You've got teachershounding you, secretaries hounding you, letters going home to parents ....Where do ydu draw the line between the kid taking responsibility for gettingan education and the school badgering him?"

His criticism is not the only one. A frequent complaint is that the tests aretoo easy. The reading test, a commercially-produced exam, is rated about aseventh-grade level. The others were developed by Westside teachers and haveno specific rating.

"My English teacher told me to write the easiest sentences I could thinkof," sophomore Kim Harms said of the writing test, which requires three re-lated paragraphs of at least four sentences each, with no more than five er-rors.

"She gave me examples," said Kim, "like 'Dick and Jane ran up the hill,'and said I'd pass as long as the punctuation was right."

Social studies teacher Bill Nelson said students demonstrated more com-petence by working in the fall political campaign than by taking the demo-cratic process test, a true-Nse quiz. "I would not think for a minute our testshows these kids will operate at a minimum level."

Findley himself worries about the speech test, an oral exam administeredindividually by 130 homeroom advisers. "It's a farce," said one adviser. "Ihaven't flunked anyone yet."

Still, many teachers support the tests, although most insist the tests arenot Westside's prime goal and will not overshadow the rest of the curriculum.Even School Superintendent Vaughn Phelps agreed, "We don't think it'ssuch a big deal."

For some students, it is. "It may take me another 30 or 40 times," said ajunior who claimed he has failed the writing test seven times. One senior, whopassed the writing test on his third try, said he hurried through the first twotimes. What tripped him up? "Spelling," he said, "punctuation, and I thinkcapitalism (sic)."

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St. Paul: An Alternative

While students in other cities hurdled paper and pencil tests on their wayto graduation, David Samuelson collected letters, testimonies, and even tele-grams. Some samples:

A Boy Scout leader wrote that Dave planned menus and bought foodfor camping trips and earned cooking and camping merit badges.

"In three years he has progressed from a beginning dancer to one of ahigh level of proficiency," wrote an official of The Children's Theatre Com-pany in Minneapolis.

A drama teacher cited Dave's leadership and listed several plays in whichDave took part as an actor or director.

In all, Dave collected 30 pages of testimony from teachers, employers, andeven his parents as part of a graduation requirement at the St. Paul OpenSchool, where officials scoffed at the tests that are becoming popular as grad-uation requirements elsewhere. "We simply don't believe tests show much,"said David Evertz, an information officer and teacher at the Open School.

Dave Samuelson and his classmates took only a handful of tests duringtheir high school days and received no grades or credits for the courses theytook. Instead, they found ways to demonstrate competency in six areas:career education, community involvement, current issues, consumer aware-ness, information finding, and personal and interpersonal skills.

Unlike seniors elsewhere, may of whom joke about the low level of mini-mum competency tests at their schools, seniors at the Open School appear totake their requirements seriously.

"I don't think you'll find anyone here who considers them a joke," saidEvertz. Samuelson concurred: "I think it's harder, I think it's tougher, andthat's good,"

Under the Open School plan, each senior selects a graduation committeeinclud ng a counselor, student advisor, a tenth-grade student, and anotherperson of the senior's choice. The committee reviews the student's plans andeventually decides whether to recommend the student for graduation.

"It's a struggle for some of them," said Evertz. "Usually," he said, "twoor three of about 40 seniors each year don't make it." That is a higher per-centage of failure than in school systems like Omaha, Denver, or Gary wherepaper and pencil exams are used.

Some Open School supporters said paper and pencil tests just won't dowhat parents and taxpayers around the country hope they will -- that is,guarantee students can function competently after graduation,

"They (parents) are not getting what they're being told they're getting,"said Wayne Jennings, former Open School principal. "We call it consumerfraud .. . . I think it's a short-lived fad, a not very thoughtful approach tothe complicated process of learning."

At the Open School, said Jennings, emphasis was placed on communityinvolvement. "We didn't confine education to just books and classroom set-tings. I've always believed education should be defined as the developmentof competencies needed for life in a complex society."

The attempts to focus strictly on the Three Rs, he said, are a myopic wayof looking at education. Today, people are calling on people to do a lot morethan that. "We ought to work more on developing responsibility, initiative,perseverance, enthusiasm, ability to make decisions."

20 4a

Another problem with most paper and pencil graduation exams is theirlow level, usually seventh- or eighth-grade material, said Joe Nathan, also aformer administrator at the Open School. "People will say they're payingfor 12 years of education and getting seven or eight I don't think it'sgoing to increase the public's confidence."

Confidence in the Open School's requirements was not a problem for EllenScher, a member of the 1977 graduating class. "I'm personally very proud of

my graduation packet," said the 19-year-old, who included as part of herpacket an account of her experiences as an exchange student in Mexico. "Idon't think students who go through a regular high school are ever held ac-countable for evaluating their own education," she said. "Here, you demardthat a student look at education as an individual thing, not as a matter of Igot six credits like everyone else did."

One parent, Dr. Robert Bjornson, was so impressed with his son's grad-uation packet that he made a copy of it. "When I graduated from highschool," said Bjornson, "the trick was just to continue to breathe till thelast day."

Oregon: A Competency Smorgasbord

Wait a minute. Wasn't this where it all got started? Wasn't this the placethat rocked the education industry by telling high schoolers they had toprove their competence by passing skill tests, that just Sitting at a desk wasn'tgood enough anymore? (See Phi Delta Kappa fastback 118. The C'ase fur

Competency-Based Education by Dale Parnell.)Seven years ago, wasn't Oregon the spark that set the competency testing

brushfire that now smolders in 36 states?But just look around:

In Albany, officials cut the number of competency skills from 165 to 92after parents and teachers complained about them, including one that re-quired physical education teachers to record the number of showers eachstudt nt took.

In Eugene, schools once required more than 200 competencies, but nowlist just 17. "It was just impossible," said one assistant principal, who stilldislikes the idea, but says, "We'll play the damn game."

In Lincoln County, schools list 243 minimum skills, including suchthings as the ability to list five jobs related to dance, "identify (your) parents'occupations," and "demonstrate a positive concept of self-worth."

What is ad of this? "It's such a simple concept, and yet it caused a lot oftrouble," said W.R. "Bus" Nance, giaduation requirements specialist with theOregon Department of Education in Salem. "In the beginning, no one knewwhat it was."

What it was, was a 1972 State Board of Education ruling on graduationstandards, requiring students to demonstrate competence in reading, listen-

ing, speaking, writing, analyzing, and computing. By 1978, when the first

class graduated under the new rules, the state's 300-plus school districts hadnearly that many different programs, some simple, some mind-boggling.

"Some have as few as nine (competencies) and others up to 300," saidState Senator Clifford Trow, who chaired task force hearings last year whereadministrators, teachers, and citizens testified, often contending the compe-

21

tencies were trivial, time-consuming, and a paperwork nightmare."I haven't been convinced it's much better than anything else," said Trow.

"A lot of us believe the whole program was a public relations thing." Histask force eventually recommended sweeping changes, klying it had seriousreservations about using competencies as graduation requirements.

Whatever the problems, ccmpetency testing is here, and schools are com-ing up with results as different as those in Parkrose and Albany, for instance.

In Parkrose, a Portland suburb, "We viewed it as an opportunity to get ouract together," said Clarence Mershon, graduation requirements ditector. Ac-cording to Nance, the 4,200-student district "moved faster, further, bet ,rthan any district in the state."

What makes Parkrose stand out? For one thing, it focuses its competencyplan on junior high schools. Seventh- and eighth-graders get tested for manyof the 84 competencies, including things like the ability to spell, writecoherent paragraphs, perform simple mathematical operations, and under-stand an author's main idea.

"Why wait until high school to find out?" said Bob Frantz, principal atHeights Junior High. "We don't want to wait to see if a kid can read at theeighth-grade level by the time he's in ninth, tenth grade.'

Among last year's ninth-graders, nine put of 10 passed the math compe-tency and 95% the reading competency, a test requiring about an eighth-grade reading level. Less than half passed those tests as seventh-graders, ac-cording to Mershon. Those who don't pass are assigne,i to special classes athigh school.

There is another advantage, said Mershon. "Some districts set the readinglevel at sixth grade and then test eleventh- and twelfth-graders, which is notgood public relations. It's also a waste of time."

Perhaps Parkrose's most critical step, however, was the re-examination ofits curriculum from kindergarten through twelfth grade. "It was high time,"said Mershon. "It's important to assess what you're doin We haven't beendoing that in education." The curriculum review resulted not only in specificcourse goals, but extensive testing all the way down to the elementary level,said Mershon. "We had an era in the '60s and '70s where teachers were iso-lated in their classrooms doing whatever they damn well pleased withoutmuch direction." Said junior high English teacher Don Reed, "No one evertold me exactly what I was going to teach prior to this."

Teachers are among the plan's backers, and one reason is that they helpedwrite not only course goals, but competency requirements as well. "Theyhave spent so much time working on it that they have become committed toit," said Rot. Sherwood, president of the Parkrose Faculty Association.

Tim Gillespie, director of an alternative program for unmotivated students,said, "I think it's reasonable to assume a kid should be able to write fourparagraphs when he gets out of school." Said another teacher, "Before. theassumption was you stay in school, keep your nose clean, and you'll grad-uate whether you have any skills or not."

When the district tried its math test on ninth-graders back in 1974 as anexperiment, two out of three failed. "They were terrible in percentages, awfulin story problems," said former math teacher Iris Collins. "It was a blow toeveryone."

Not that there aren't critics. Jeanne Paul, a member of a Parkrose HighSchool citizens group, said her eleventh-grade son "still writes very badly,

22

and yet he's been passed out of writing . . .. He neither punctuates norspells correctly, and I'm protesting."

Such protests seem mild compared to the ones heard in Albany. Listen:"It (competency testing) gives education a really bad name," said Bob

Monson, an English teacher at West Albany High School. "Kids are uni-versally aware the damn things are silly. They've come to the point wherethey're going through the motions like everyone else. I am, they are, and theadministrators are."

Others, including some parents in the 4,000-student, grade 7-12 district,echo his criticism. Why? The answer may lie in the district's original list of165 competencies, drawn up by teachers and approved by a citizens com-mittee. Among other things its required students to:

Read a clock, read a calendar, use the mail, and use a telephone."Recognize nonverbal expressions." One teacher said, in mock annoy-

ance, students might be asked "to look at the ceiling, roll their eyes, andsigh.

"Maintain personal cleanliness," a goal student; met by taking showers80% of the time after physical education class. "The teacher had to checkthem off as they came out of the shower," said one rlincipal. "Or," scoffeda teacher, "they had to be 80% wet."

Although those requirements were dropped, even the new list raised eye-brows:

For Competency No, 45, students must identify eight of 10 parts on adiagram of the human body, "I don't know if it does any kid in the worldany good to know where his pituitary gland is," said an aide who gives thetest.

A graduation manual says students must, "with at least 80% accuracy,"match the terms "achievement, companionship, love, respect, and security"with five one-line definitions under Competency No. 39, "knowledge ofpsychological needs."

Albany school board member Mae Yih contends Albany took a simpleidea and turned it into an expensive bureaucratic jumble. "It's an affront tothe education system," she said. "It's a waste of taxpayers' dollars, a wasteof teachers' time."

Rogene Odden, mother of three Albany teen-agers, said competencies missthe real problem. "There's a great need to upgrade standards for teachers. Thecompetencies place the burden on children."

Despite such criticism, the district defends the revised competency plan,saying it has led to clearer classroom goals, better evaluation, and more helpfor slow students. The district did expand its remedial reading staff fromthree to five. It also hired an aide whn keeps records and runs a lab wherestudents catch up on missing competencies.

"I think (competencies) address the problem of the kid who doesn'taspire to higher education better than anything we've come up with so far,"sa,.i Assistant Superintendent Robert Stalick. Before the competency planstarted. said Stalick, "this distrit.t wasn't measuring kids systematically." Headded, "In the past, we are confident we were graduating students whocouldn't compute at basic levels, couldn't read."

Some backers believe the criticism will subside once the current crop ufjunior hilt!, school students reaches high school. Like Parkrose, Albany re-quires many of its competencies, particularly those related to basic skills,at the junior high school. "The older kids made a mockery of it, but our kids

23

Mr

see it as a task that has to be done," said North Albany Junior High Schoolcounselor Carolyn Sheppard.

One recommendation of Senator Trow's task force was to put the empha-sis of competency testing at junior high schools and even elementary schools.Back in Parkrose, however, eighth-grader Chris Balzer raises a troubling ques-tion: "Why do you need to study your brains out for a competency you'rejust going to forget when you get older?"

Do students forget most of those skills by the time they graduate? Doescompetency testing make any difference?

Not Parkrose, not Albany, not even the State of Oregon has much evi-dence. Parkrose points to rises in seventh-grade mathematics standardized testscores and Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores. In Albany, this year'ssophomores showed steady improvement during junior high on a standardizedtest. Whether those gains, particularly on a college entrance exam like theSAT, are tied to the minimum competency movement is questionable.

In fact, little data exists anywhere on how students performed prior tocompetency testing. said Gordon Ascher, associate superintendent with thestate department of education. "We never said what problems the program isintended to cure," said Ascher, who hopes to get some answers early in 1979,when the first data is due back from a University of Oregon survey of dis-tricts.

Whether it cures graduates is in question, whether it denies th, -n diplomasis not. Hardly anyone fails. Last spring, most Oregon schools found ways toget seniors over the competency hurdle. Albany, for instance, failed none ofits 550 graduates on competency tests, Parkrose only one of its 370.

What is the future of competency testing in Oregon? Under current rules,Oregon requires the Class ot 1981 to meet additional competencies in health,citizenship, science, environment, consumerism, highway safety, and careereducation.

However, State Superintendent Verne Duncan recently recommendeddropping separate categories for consumerism, environment, and highwaysafety. In addition, Duncan suggests specific goals in reading, writing, andmath at elementary schools an apparent response to critics, like the Trowcommittee, that said the state competency plan focused too much on highschools.

Nance predicts the state will try to create mor uniformity among dis-tricts by distributing a recommended or mandated I it of competencies. Onething the state has not distributed is money, and just how much competencyprograms cost is uncertain.

Mershon estimates Parkrose's program costs about $10 a student forrecords and testing, roughly $42,000 a year. Albany officials would not esti-mate what their plan costs, but South High School Vice Principal Doug Killincalled it "a tremendous expenditure, much more than we ever should have(spent)."

Despite the snarls, supporters and critics alike say the public reexamina-tion of schools and the setting of clear classroom goals is healthy. "You canwalk into a classroom and say to any teacher, 'What are you doing in thiscourse?'" said Robert Gourley of the Northwest Regional Educational Labo-ratory in Portland. "That's got to make a difference." Said Nance: "It hasdone far more to revamp curriculum, improve curriculum, than anythingthat's been done in the last 50 years."

But Oregon's plan has left a trail of programs covering everything frompituitary glands to showers.

"I think (citizens) are concerned about whether kids can read, write, andcompute," said Jack Fe !met, chairman of an Oregon Education Associationcommittee that recommended limiting the state program to those three basicskills. "This is sort of a nightmare of bookkeeping that really, in the finalanalysis, does not change anything."

John Porter, a senior at South Albany High School, said, "The compe-tencies are a good idea, but more thought was needed .... When I was asophomore I had to be able to dial a telephone. That's ridiculous."

Bakersfield: Some Troubling Data

In many cities where high schoolers must pass graduation skill tests, no-body is conducting research to find out whether the tests do any good. Thatleads skeptics to wonder whether those graduates really do any better inreading, writing, and math.

But here in this central California oil and farming community, whereschools got a head start requiring graduation competency tests, officials didstudy test data, The result: Officials wonder whether graduates really do anybetter in reading, writing, and math. "There's a good possibility this wholeminimum competency thing, if ever thoroughly assessed, would prove wereally can't teach anything," said James Fillbrandt, principal of BakersfieldHigh School.

Researchers found seniors under competency requirements did no betteron the tests, or even did slightly worse, than an earlier group not under therequirements. "We were very disappointed," said former reading consultantCeCelia Algra.

In light of the evidence, will schools here continue the program, one thatcosts an estimated $75,000 a year? The question is moot. A 1976 Californialaw requires local districts to establish such programs by 1980. The Kern HighSchool District, an 18,000-student district of 12 high school? plus alternativecenters, started its competency plan back in 1971 with school board ap-proval.

Besides its early start, two other things set thc program apart: First,schools tested workers in local businesses to help determine passing scores;second, officials agreed to evaluate competency test results to see whetherthe program worked. The math test became a requirement for seniors of1976, the reading test for 1977 seniors. A writing test will be required of198! graduates. All tests are first given to freshmen.

"We were picking up the vibes," said Algra, now a .unselor at Bakers-field High. "People were complaining kids were getting out of high schooland weren't able to read, do simple math."

The plan blossomed under Fillbrandt, a boyish-looking former researchdirector, who, ironically, takes an iconoclastic view of the nation's compe-tency testing movement. "From the learning side," he said, "it's nothing,it's garbage, it's no better than anything else." But Fillbrandt, who once op-posed even the Kern proposal, admits he underestimated the idea's publicappeal.

"This idea had tremendous potential politically. This is what the peoplewanted. It had the Three Rs with a screaming vengenance."

One apparently popular step was the decision togive the reading and mathtests to local workers, "It was," said Fillbrandt, "the best thing I've everdone in my career." The district gave the tests to 300 clerks, secretaries,nurse's aids, firefighters, machine operators workers in jobs requiring somemath and reading skills, according to Algra. "We actually tested it with peoplethese kids are going to have to compete with," she said.

One of those surveyed was Billie Ward, a 58-year-old grandmother and abuyer in the cosmetics department of a local drug store. "I remember therewas some division or equations or something. I didn't think it was very dif-ficult," she said. "I think it's great, I really do. I don't think kids are beingtaught properly. We have quite a few high school kids working here. Someof them can't even make change."

Her contention is hardly surprising in light of what the Kern districtfound. For example, on the 45-question math test, only 31% of this year'sfreshmen could find area and perimeter, 52% subtract decimals, and 57%measure a line. Because they are allowed to pass the 15 math objectives oneat a time, most students meet the requirement eventually. In fact, out of3,500 seniors last spring, fewer than 20 were denied diplomas because offailing the competency tests, the district estimates.

However, when schools retested samples of seniors in experiments during1976 and 1977, only one in 10 passed all 15. The average senior passed 10.

Even more disturbing was that classes not under the requirements did justas well, not only in math, but reading. In fact, the average senior in 1975passed 10.2 math objectives, compared with 10.2 in 1976, 9.9 in 1977, and9.8 in 1978. On the reading exam, a test based on local newspaper stories,the average 1976 senior answered 24 of 30 test questions correctly, comparedwith 23.2 in 1977 a ad 23.8 in 1978.

"I can't get any body in the district to take up the idea why those scoresaren't improving," said Fillbrandt. "Nobody wants to touch it."

The belief that minimum competency programs help students learn isjust one misunderstanding in a movement fraught with myths, contendsFillbrandt. "The whole thing has the potential for some very silly people todevelop programs, and they will be a farce, a damn joke . . (Another)possibility, the most dangerous of all, is that people will treat this as saintly,as a panacea, and start wrenching their entire school program around it."

But, Fillbrandt urges, don't get him wrong. "We're not changing anythingin terms of learning, but I'm glad we're doing what we're doing," he said.Others agree that new remedial math and reading courses, better identifica-tion of slow students, and clearer course goals are benefits of the Kern pro.gram.

"Students realize high school graduation is more than social passing,"said Bakersfield High School teacher Thelma Chapman. "We are answeringthe need of business people who expect something of the diploma."

Said freshman Barbara Garcia: "If you want the title of high schoolgraduate, you should also have the knowledge of one . . You just can'tgraduate and know nothing."

Mike Walters, 16, a junior, put it succinctly: "If you're dumb, it's a goodidea."

Even Sherry Shatnblin, a student in Bakersfield Adult School and 30-year-old mother of two, doesn't mind having to take the test. "If they can't add,subtract, multiply, and divide when they get out of high school, theyshouldn't get out." r)

I

26

But there are critics, too, some of whom say the tests are too easy. "Thethings on the test were things I learned in fourth grade," said senior KellieMyers. "What's the point?"

West High School math teacher Dorothy Wood, who designed the mathcompetency test, said, "I can't see that it makes a difference. What makes adifference is when you have a teacher in the classroom, and you close theuoor and teach."

Wood hopes Kern schools will continue to, examine test results, althoughofficials say the research might be done less often. Wood contends educa-tors in most places have been afraid to study the product of competency test-ing. "Everybody assumes it will do some good, but suppose it doesn't? That'stoo horrible to think about," she said. "We put too much of our ego into thething."

27

Part II

Minimum Competency Testing:State Approaches

by Jimmie CovingtonEducation WriterThe Commercial AppealMemphis, Tennessee

29 3,9

Overview of the States

Barring any delays, Florida and New York in the spring of 1979 will grad-uate the first high school classes in the nation that have had to meet state-wide minimum competency testing requirements.

Minimum competency testing the most controversial and widespreadeducation movement of the late 1970s may well run head-on into realityin the two states.

Any delays, particularly in Florida, where the testing program has cap-tured national attention, could have a chilling effect on other statzwidetesting programs being developed across the.country.

A class action lawsuit has been filed in federal court in Tampa charging theFlorida functional literacy test (now called the State Student AssessmentTest, Part II) is racially discriminatory against blacks. The suit says thatFlorida has a history of racia: discrimination and that 77% of the black stu-dents who took the test in October, 1977, failed the test's mathematics sec-tion while only 24% of the white stutients failed; and 26% of the black stu-dents failed the test's communications section in 1977 while only 3% of thewhite students failed. Overall results improved in the fall of 1978.

A task force established by the state cabinet which sits as the stateboard of education in Florida has voted 7-4 to recommend a one-year delaybefore high school students are denied diplomas on the basis of the assess-ment test. The group headed by Jesse McCrary, a black attorney from Miamiwho served as interim secretary of state in Florida, said the state "cannotmorally justify" denying diplomas this year because many of this year'sseniors were not taught what was tested.

The task force which included representatives of various groups around thestate, including educators and civil rights leaders, said state education officialsshould overhaul the exam which they characterized as a "hastily constructed"and a "very shaky instrument." The task force also called for the testing tobegin in the tenth grade instead of the eleventh grade and said eighth-gradersshould be given a rigid basic skills test to make sure they had minimum read-ing, writing, and mathematics skills before entering high school.

While still in the state legislature, Florida's new governor, Robert Graham,was among senators who unsuccessfully sought a delay in implementation ofthe graduation requirement until the state's remedial education programscould take effect.

Since the functional literacy requirement stemmed from 1976 legislativeaction, any delay in the test deadline would apparently have to be approved

A

30

by the legislature. Also, the scoring procedure for the test is under legal at-tack from the Florida Legal Services Association, which charges a propereconomic impact study was not made.

The testing approach has strong support among many politicians, business-men, parents, and newspapers in the state. A fear has been expressed that ifit is delayed it will be killed entirely.

New York has escaped much of the national attention that Florida hasattracted. Competency tests in New York are graded by local school systemsand the only statewide reports come in surveys by the state education depart-ment. A report in the spring of 1978 indicated that 85% of the state'seleventh-graders had met the reading and mathematics testing requirement bythat time, although only 63% of New York City's eleventh-graders had metthe requirement.

Stung by criticism that the present tests are too easy, the state Board ofRegents has mandated new tests for the class of 1982. The present readingand mathematics tests plus a writing test will be in effect for 1981 graduates.Students who pass comprehensive Regents examinations in English and math-ematics do not have to take the competency tests.

The Regents examinations, which have been in use since 1865, are highlyrespected end-of-course examinations students may take if they pursue cer-tain level courses. About 50 to 55% of New York high school students usuallytake the Regents examinations. Students who select certain courses and passthe examinations receive a Regents diploma. Other students who do notchoose this approach receive local diplomas.

Although the minimum competency testing movement has rolled acrossthe country in the 1970s, it has not captured all states and it may have reach-ed a plateau as far as state legislative action is concerned.

A listing by Chris Pipho, associate director of the Department of Researchand Information for the Education Commission of the States in Denver, in-dicates that about eight to 10 states have adopted statewide competencytests; another 10 to 12 states have adopted state competency requirementsbut not statewide tests; and 16 or so states have competency programs butthey are not directly tied to graduation. The remaining 14 ot so states havenot joined the competency movement, and Pipho doubts that most of themwill.

"The movement just defies being put in a chart or newspaper headline,"Pipho said, referring to the diverse approaches being taken by the states. "Itgenerally appears the state legislatures are probably in a neutral position atthis time. Moves have already been made in states that have political climateswhich would have permitted a move. I wouldn't expect a great deal morelegislation at this point."

States that have programs are now moving into a stage of identifyingstandards, developing tests, and placing the programs into effect, he said.Court cases will be watched carefully.

Pipho cited a "big stick versus carrot approach" to funding. Some legisla-tors feel that funding should be provided to aid in remediating student defi-ciencies while others feel that cutting back funding is the only way to forceeducators to make changes and improvement in education.

In states where competency assessment is ieft to local school systems andin cities that have their own competency testing programs, only small num-bers of diplomas have been denied because of proficiency requirements alone.

31 8

A 1978 state survey in Arizona showed that only 202 out of 32,294seniors failed to graduate because they did not meet proficiency standards.Another 2,407 did not graduate for other reasons, apparently from failure tomeet course or other requirements.

In 1978 in Richmond, Virginia, city schools, 212 of 1,746 eligible seniorsfailed to meet course or proficiency requirements. Of the 212 a total of 156met proficiency requirements but not course requirements, 45 did not meetcourse or proficiency requirements; and 11 met course requirements but notproficiency requirements. Twenty of the students met proficiency require-ments during summer school.

Phoenix (Arizona) Union High School District officials said only four toeight of the 683 students who failed to graduate in 1978 were denied diplo-mas because they did not meet competency requirements.

There are a number of firsts in the diverse state competency picture.Oregon was the first state to have state minimum competency graduation

requirements. They were approved by the State Board of Education in Sep-tember, 1972, and became effective with the class of 1978. There is no state-wide test in Oregon, and some school districts certify the competency of stu-dents through regular courses without any special testing programs. There areno statewide figures available on the impact of the competency requirementson graduation.

New York was th- first state to give a statewide competency test to stu-dents to ninth-graders in the fall of 1975 on a pilot basis. The state Board

competency requirements the class of 1976. The state Board of Educationapproved the requirement in November, 1973, and the policy became effec-

and 1978 was the first year a state survey was conducted on the effects ofthe requirements.

-t

tive January 1, 1976. All testing and assessment is handled at the local level,

priated $10 million for the 1977-78 school year and $26.5 million for thefor students who do not pass competency tests. The state legislature appro-

sults from the testing of high school juniors in the fall of 1978, The NorthCarolina State Board of Education has asked that $10 million be providedfor the 1979-80 school year and $5 million for the following year.

of Regents in March, 1976, adopted a policy requiring high school graduates

effect for the 1979 graduating class.

for the 1978-79 school year and Governor James B. Hunt, who campaignedstrongly for a minimum competency testing program in that state, haspledged he will make an additional $4 million available depending on the re-

to pass competency tests in reading and mathematics. The requirement is in

although requests are expected to be made as competency programs come in-to effect.

Alabama are developing tests aimed at 1981,

1978-79 school year for remedial training for students in all grades.

feet with the class of 1980. Among other states with statewide tests or plansfor tests, Virginia has a test in effect for the class of 1981. Delaware and

Arizona was the first state to have a graduating class subjected to state

The North Carolina legislature provided $4.45 million in remedial funds

Florida is the first state to provide major funding for 1nedial programs

Tennessee, Nevada, and Maryland have laws or state board regulationsmandating that 1982 graduates meet statewide competency requirements.

So far, no other states have made major provisions for remedial funding

In North Carolina, the competency graduation requirement goes into ef-

32 Lc

Laws and Regulations

Florida

Florida's 1976 Educational Accountability Act directs the state commis-sioner of education to "develop and administer in the public schools a uni-form, statewide program of assessment to determine, periodically, education-al status and progress and the degree of achievement of approved minimumperformance standards. The uniform statewide program shall consist of test-ing in grades 3, 5, 8, and 11 and may include testing of additional grades andskill areas as specified by the commissioner."

The law also specifies that each school district "shall periodically assessstudent performance and achievement in each school. Such assessment pro-grams shall be based upon local goals and objectives which are compatiblewith the state's plan for education and which supplement the minimum per-formance standards approved by the State Board of Education."

Each school district is required to "establish a comprehensive program forpupil progression which shall be based upon an evaluation of each pupil'sperformance, including how well he masters the minimum performance stan-dards approved by the state board."

Particular emphasis must be placed "upon the pupil's mastery of basicskills, especially reading, before he is promoted from grades 3, 5, 8, and 11.Other pertinent factors considered by the teacher before recommendingthat a pupil progress from one grade to another shall be prescribed by theschool district board in its rules."

The literacy test graduation requirement stems from a section of the 1976law which states:

"Beginning with the 1978-79 school year, eavh district school board shallestablish standards for graduation from its secondary schools. Such standardsshall include, but not be limfted to, mastery of the basic skills and satisfac-tory performance in functional literacy as determined by the State Board ofEducation and the completion of the minimum number of credits requiredby the district school board.

"Each district shall develop procedures for the remediation of the defi-ciencies of those students who are unable to meet such standards. Based onthose standards, each district shall provide for the awarding of certificatesof attendance (changed to 'certificates of completion' in a 1978 amendment)and may provide for differentiated diplomas to correspond with the varyingachievement levels or competencies of its secondary students."

33T.?

(As pcinted out by a study panel which examined the Florida programunder sponsorship of the National Education Association and the FloridaTeaching ProfessionNEA, the word "test" is not used in the functionalliteracy requirement although testing is specified as the method of assessingbasic skills. The law actually does not specify the method of assessing func-tional literacy performance.)

In carrying out the law, the Florida State Board of Education and StateDepartment of Education have developed basic skills tests to be given eachOctober to students in grades 3, 5, 8, and 11. Students who fail objectiveson the tests are not required to retake the tests, but schools are supposed toprovide remediation and then "certify" that the students have mastered theobjectives.

Eleventh-graders are also given the State Student Assessment Test, PartII, (formerly the functional literacy test the name was changed to getaway from the implication that failure meant that a person was illiterate).The multiple choice answer test includes practical applications of skills inreading, writing, and mathematics and is divided into two parts communi-cations and mathematics.

A passing score of 70 is required on each section. The student must retakethe section he or she does not pass. Three additional opportunities are givenbefore graduation (1978-79 seniors are having only two additional oppor-tunities), and if the student does not pass, he cr she is scheduled to receivethe certificate of completion. A student receiving a certificate may enterthe adult education program and continue to take the test until a passingmark is received.

North Carolina

North Carolina has two state testing laws, both enacted in 1977 at theurgnig of Governor Hunt. The laws establish a minimum competency testingprogram and an annual testing program. The competency testing law requiresthe adoption of "tests or other measurement devices , .. to assure that allhigh school graduates possess those minimum skills and that knowledgethought necessary to function as a member of society, to provide a means ofidentifying strengths and weaknesses in the education process, and to estab-lish additional means for making the educational system accountable to thepublic for results."

The law specifies that tests must be given to all eleventh-graders begin-ning in the fall of 1978.

"Students who fail to attain the required minimum standard for gradua-tion in the eleventh grade shall be given remedial instruction and additionalopportunities to take the test up to and including the last month of thetwelfth grade.

"Students who fail to pass parts of the test shall be retested on only thoseparts they fail."

Students in special education programs may be excluded from the testing.The North Carolina law established a 15-member Competency Test Com-

mission consisting of teachers, principals, other educators, and interested citi-zens, all appointed by the governor. The duties of the commission includeconducting research and selecting tests for recommendation to the StateBoard of Education and advising the state board annually on matters relatingto the use of high school graduation competency tests.

3437

After conducting research, the commission, headed by James Gallagher ofthe Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center at the University ofNorth Carolina at Chapel Hill, recommended the adoption of modified ver-sions of the Senior High Assessment of Reading Performance (SHARP) andthe Test of Proficiency in Computational Skills (TOPICS) tests.

In making the selection, three prospective reading and three prospectivemathematics tests were given to North Carolina high school juniors in thespring of 1978 along with standardized achievement tests in reading andmath.

All juniors participated in the pilot testing. Using the achievement tests togain information on the difficulty of the competency tests, the commissionfound that the math test appeared to be more difficult than the reading test.Passing scores of 72% on the reading test and 64% on the math test were rec-ommended by the commission and adopted. A special panel reviewed thetests in an effort to remove all cultural bias. The tests include both basicskills and practical applications of skills.

The second North Carolina testing law, setting up the annual testing pro-gram, requires that criterion-referenced tests he given to students in grades1 and 2 and norm-referenced standardized tests be given to students in grades3, 6, and 9. The tests were first administered in April 1978. School systemresults were released statewide.

"It is the intent of this testing program to help local school systems andteachers identify and correct student needs in basic skills rather than to pro-vide a tool for comparison of individual students or to evaluate teacher per-formance," the law says:

This law includes the appointment of an 11-member testing commission,including six certified teachers employed in grades in which the tests are tobo administered. The appointments are made by the governor.

Commission duties include evaluating and selecting tests and making rec-ommendations to the State Board of Education as well as annually reviewingthe "suitability and validity of the tests."

The North Carolina State Board of Education has adopted an advisorygroup's recommendations on graduation requirements and high school diplo-mas, certificates, and transcripts. Under the policies, diplomas are granted tostudents who complete all state and local course requirements and make apassing score on the state competency test. Students completing all state andlocal course requirements, but not passing the competency test, will receivea "certificate." It is not a certificate of completion or attendance but simplya "certificate."

A transcript must be issued to all students receiving a diploma or certifi-cate. The transcript includes a record of all Lourses comiileted and gradesearned, senior high school attendance, participatien in special programs, orany othet information as determined by the local board.

Also adopted was a policy that all students who fail to pass the coripc-tency test by the last month of their senior year may receive additional re-medial instruction and continue to take the competency test dilrinz regulartest periods until they reach the maximum school age of 21,

In a memorandum to school superintendents and secondary school prin-cipals, Craig Phillips, North Carolim's superintem.ent of public ins;.ruction,says the certificate "should be easily distinguishable from the diploma andin no way may indicate graduation or use of the term 'diploma. The stan-dards for the certificate are the same as those for the diploma except that thediploma requires passing the Competency Test."

35

Virginia

In Virginia, a major move toward a state competency testing programcame in July, 1976, when the State Board of Education revised high schoolaccreditation standards and included a requirement that students had todemonstrate minimum skills in reading, mathematics, citizenship, and theability to continue their education or get a job. Assessment of the skills wasleft to school systems.

However, some local school superintendents across the state decided astatewide test would be better and the Virginia Association of School Ad-ministrators called for a state testing program, said Harry Smith, special as-sistant for public information and publications with the Virginia Departmentof Education.

In the spring of 1978, the Virginia General Assembly changed the Stan-dards of Quality and Objectives, which govern the operation of Virginiapublic schools, and established the state testing requirement for graduation.

Smith said some superintendents in "irginia have now expressed sentimentfor a return to local testing "which would get back to where we were in thebeginning."

The Standards of Quality and Objectives, as changed by th,s General As-sembly, specify:

"It is the policy of the Commonwealth that the awarding of a high schooldiploma shall be based upon achievement. In order to receive a high schooldiploma from an accredited secondary school after January 1, 1981, studentsshall earn the number of units of credit prescribed by the Board of Educationand attain minimum competencies prescribed by the Board of Education. At-tainment of such competencies shall be demonstrated by means of a test pre-scribed by the Board of Education."

The Virginia rules also state that norm-referenced tests be administered an-nually to selected groups of students "for the purpose of assessing the educa-tional progress" of the students.

Virginia for years has had an annual standardized testing program usuallyin grades 4, 6, 8, and 11. Because of lack of funding, the standardized testswere given only in grades 4 and 8 in 1977-78. Plans for 1978-79 call for testing in grades 4, 8, and 11.

At the elementary level, Virginia legislators mandated in 1976 that state-wide learning objectives be developed in basic skills for kindergarten throughgrade 6.

The 1978 assembly specified that annual criterion-referenced testing beundertaken on the basic skill objectives in elementary grades under thisschedule:

1978-79 reading and mathematics, grades 1-31979-80 reading and mathematics, grade 41980-81 reading and mathematics, grades 5-6,

and communications skills, grades 1-6.The assembly also specified that remedial training be given to low-achiev-

ing students in elementary grades.The tests are being developed by the State Department of Education and

are to be administered in connection with the individual instruction of stu-dents rather than having statewide testing dates.

Richard Boyer, assistant state superintendent for program development,said the basic skill objectives and tests in elemental), grades are not tied to

,

promotion and retention but are aimed at improving the skills of students inthe early grades.

Because of the short time between the adoption of the high school gradua-tion testing requirement in the spring of 1978 and a desire to have tests readyfor tenth-graders in the fall of 1978, Virginia education officials undertookperhaps the most rushed program in the country to develop standards, selecttests, and determine passing scores. This year's tenth-graders will be the firstclass to come under the 1981 graduation requirement.

The education department and state board pinpointed 15 competencies inmathematics and two in reading. Two commercial tests were selected after aquick study the Instructional Objectives Exchange (I0X) Basic Skill Testin reading and the Virginia Beach Test for Mathematics, developed for theVirginia Beach school division by Scholastic Testing Service.

Since state education officials did not have time to pilot or field test thetests with a sample of Virginia students, they wanted to wait until after theresults were in from the first testing to set a passing score. However, the stateboard decided that the scores should be set before the tests were given. BoardChairman Henry Tulloch said the board wanted to avoid charges that thestandard was fixed for political reasons in an effort to avoid too many fail-ures.

Testing dates were delayed for a month in the fall of 1978 and state de-partment of education officials were asked to come back with a recommenda-tion on scores. The department assembled a group of school and communitypersons, conducted a quick study, and recommended that passing scores beset at 70.

There was controversy over whether students who pass the test in theninth grade should be required to retake it in their senior years. The stateboard decided that, at least for the classes of 1981 and 1982, students willnot have to retake the test in their senior years if they pass it in their earlieryears. James W. Tyler, deputy superintendent for Richmond public schools,called for senior year testing as a method of providing incentive for students.

Under the Virginia plan, the graduation tests will be given initially ingrade 9. The tests were given to tenth-graders in the fall of 1978 since theywill be the first students coming under the graduation requirement. Testingfor ninth-graders was scheduled for April of 1979.

Early projections from the 1978 fall testing of tenth-graders were thatonly 15% of the students failed the reading test and 18% the mathematicstest. Failure rates of 20 to 25% had been predicted. The projections werebased on scores received from about one-fourth of Virginia's 141 school divi-sions.

W. E. Campbell, state superintendent of public instruction, was quoted asconcluding that the tests are neither too easy nor too hard; that the testmovement is making the impact sought by the General Assembly and stateboard in that most students seem to be learning basic skills and that someareas with high failure rates need extra help.

No state remedial funding has been provided in Virginia but education of-ficials said there have been indications that some might be provided in thefuture.

Nine local school divisions, which had already set up their local testingprograms, have been exempted from the state test through 1982. In Virginia,local school systems are still required to assess students' competencies in citi-zenship skills and the ability to continue their education or find jobs.

37

New York

New York education officials over a three-year period have changed grad-uation competency requirements three times. The Board of Regents man-dated in March, 1976, that 1979 graduates pass basic competency tests inreading and mathematics. The policy was changed in 1976-77 and compe-tency tests in writing skills, practical sciences, health, and civics and citizen-ship were added as requirements for 1980 graduates.

However, since then, the requirements in sciences, health, and civics andcitizenship have been dropped and the 1980 graduates must pass reading,mathematics, and writing tests. The reading and math tests stress practicalapplications of skills. Officials said the other tests were dropped so that more

,emphasis could be placed on the basic reading, mathematics, and writingskills.

As a result of criticism that the tests were too easy, the Regents have votedfor the development of three new tests in reading, writing, and mathematicsas requirements for the 1981 graduates.

Many students who will be graduating in 1981 already have taken andpassed the old tests. Some local school officials are expecting confusion andcriticism when students and their parents become fully aware that the stu-dents are required to take an entirely new set of tests. The final standards onthe new tests are to be considered for adoption in February, 1979.

When the basic competency tests were initially adopted in 1976, it wasdecided that all students would be required to take the tests. However, thishas since been changed to exempt students who pass Regents examinations incomprehensive English and mathematics, The new competency tests stressbasic academic skills rather thaa practical applications of skills.

In setting tentative standards for the new tests, the Regents stated:"The long-range goal of the Board of Regents is that each student in New

York State, to qualify for a high school diploma, attain a standard of achieve-ment in reading comprehension equal to the average difficulty of maw-Wsin use in twelfth-grade courses. The Board expects this goal to be achievedover a five-year period.

"The Regents establish a tentative standard for reading comprehension re-quired for a high school diploma equal to the average difficulty of materialsin use in the tenth- and eleventh-grade courses."

Some newspaper writers and others have interpreted this to mean that thereading comprehension test is to be on the tenth or eleventh-grade levelsinitially with movement to the twelfth-grade level over five years. However,the average difficulty of materials in any grade might vary considerably.Grade level is usually considered to be the median, or middle score, of asample of students used in establishing norms for standardized achievementtests.

The new reading comprehension test is based on a new approach called"degrees of reading power." Reading and education specialists said the newreading requirement will substantially raise the level of reading comprehen-sion required of high school graduates.

The writing test will require that a student wiite a business letter, a re-port, and a persuasive message ', he mathematics test will consist of 60 ques-tions. Some will require th btudent to produce his or her own answers.Others will be multiple choice. Passing scores on the New York tests havebeen set at 65%, the traditional passing scork, on New York tests,

38

In elementary grades, New York State, since 1966, has had statewide read-ing and mathematics achievement tests for all pupils in grades 3 and 6 in aprogram called the Pupil Evaluation Program (PEP).

Preliminary competency tests in reading and writing are planned for gades8 and 9 to assist in the identification of students needing help in the compe-tency areas. The tests will be given to students who score below certain levelson the PEP sixth-grade reading tests or nationally standardized reading tests.

Th .?. new graduation tests in reading comprehension and writing are to beadministered in grades 11 and 12 and the mathematics test is to be given afterthe student has completed a new required mathematics course. (Before thechange, the competency graduation tests usually were given to ninth-gradersand sometimes to eighth-graders.)

No state remedial funding has been provided in connection with the newcompetency requirements. No legislative action on competencies has beentaken in New York. The competency requirements stem solely from Board ofRegents action.

3efore adopting the final standards on the new tests, Regents set up awidespread review of the proposals by statewide public and non-public educa-tional groups, the education commissioner's and Regents' advisory councils,and representatives of the University of the State of New York. The Regentsalso sought advice from other organizations and the general public.

Arizona

Arizona's State Board of Education policy on competencies and gradua-tion states:

"The Stite Board of Education has adopted the goal that every studentshall have the equal opportunity to learn to read and write effectiyely and tomaster basic computational skills.

"The State Board believes that developing standards for these basic skillsis prerequisite and essential to the learning process of the student. Thereforethe State Board requires that promotion from year to year shall be based up-on predetermined standards for these basic skills as established by the localdistrict.

"The State Board further requires that each student shall attain at least asixth-grade competency in reading, computational, and written communica-tive skills, as determined by the local district, prior to receiving the standardeigli.th-grade certificate of promotion. This policy becomes effective January1, 1976.

"The State Board further requires that each student shall demonstrateability to read at a ninth-grade level of profich ncy as shall be established bythe local district, prior to graduation from school. The policy becomeseffective for classes after January I, 1976."

Arizona has a strong tradition of local control of education. Although arelatively low population state, it has about 230 public school districts. TheCity of Phoenix has all or part of 18 separate public school districts withinits boundaries each with its own superintendent and school board. Thedistricts are divided among elementary districts, unified districts, and highschool districts.

As part of an accountability movement, the state legislature in 1975 man-dated that each school district develop a Continuous Uniform EvaluationSystem (CUES). The law calls for districts to develop a plan of studentachievement iu the basic areas of reading, writing, and computational skills.

39

The approach requires that all districts develop learning objectives, pupilevaluation systems, alternative learning plans, a record-keeping system thatfollows students along, and a parent reporting system to keep parents in-formed.

Veronica Zepeda, state education specialist for CUES, said, "Basically itis a way of keeping track of individual student learning."

The two biggest criticisms, she said, are from school officials for a lack ofmoney and from legislators and the public for lack of uniformity. The pro-grams have not yet been placed in full effect in all districts.

Arizona state law requires standardized reading achievement testing of allthird-grade students and standardized mathematics testing of all fifth-gradestudents. The third-grade testing went into effect in 1970-71 and the fifth-grade testing in 1975-76.

A bill was introduced in the Arizona legislature in 1978 calling forcriterion-referenced testing in grades 3, 7, 8, 11, and 12 to ascertain profi-ciency in basic skills and norm-referenced achievement testing in reading,grammar, and mathematics in grades 3, 5, 8, and 11 using nationally stan-dardized tests. The bill, which failed to gain approval, said the achievementtest data would be used in periodic evaluation and revision of the criterion-referenced testing program.

The proposal also provided that students in addition to their regular grad-uation diplomas would receive special achievement endorsement certificatesif they performed at expected levels on the criterion-referenced tests at theend of grades 8 and 12.

An $850,000 appropriation was included in the bill to carry out the pro-gram. Some officials said the bill may be presented again in the legislature.

The Phoenix Union High School District, a 27,000-student high schooldistrict in Phoenix, introduced a reading competency test in 1975 and amathematics competency test in 1976, said Tom McDonald, general educa-tion supervisor in the district. An English writing test will go into effect withthe class of 1981. Students begin taking the tests which were developedwithin the school system at the beginning of the ninth grade and, as theyprogress through high school, continue to be tested on the skills in whichthey are weak.

In the past four years, from 10.3% to 12.5% of freshmen have passed inthe initial testing.

Among seniors in 1977-78, 97.2% had passed all skill areas in math byJune of their senior year and 97.8% had passed all reading skill areas.

"I'm not opposed to it (the testing) because we are comfortable withwhat we are doing," McDonald said. "As long as it is locally developed andcriterion-referenced with a sample of norm-referenced testing to validate it,I am not opposed to it. I think one of the national trends in competencytesting is that states are moving a little more slowly and listening to educa-tors. The states that are moving more slowly are doing a better job."

David Byrne, assistant superintendent for educational services with theWashington Elementary Schools District in Phoenix, said the district is prob-ably the first large school district in Arizona to implement CUES completely.

"Achievement cards are kept on each child beginning with kindergarten,"he said. "We have mastery tests after teaching occurs. If students attain 80%,it indicates they have mastered a concept. We do not tie it to promotion orretention. It is really a flowing system. Some students may be working ahead.

40

We feel you still have to take into account that children do not achieve atthe same rate. Show me one other area of human endeavor where everyonehas to exit at the same level."

Byrne said the district met "a lot of teacher resistance initially" in placingthe program into effect because of the major increase in record keeping onindividual students.

Parents receive a summary report at the end of each school year showingthe concepts introduced and mastered during the year by their child.

Nevada

The Nevada state legislature in 1977 enacted a law requiring proficiencyexaminations in reading, writing, and mathematics before the completion ofgrades 3, 6, 9, and 12.

A section of the law states:"If a pupil fails to pass the proficiency examination administered before

the completion of grade 3, 6, or 9, he may be promoted to the next highergrade, but the results of his examination shall be evaluated to determine whatremedial study is appropriate. If a pupil fails to pass the high school profi-ciency examination administered before the completion of grade 12, he shallnot be graduated until he is able, through remedial study, to pass that exam-ination. but he may be given a certificate of attendance, in place of a diplo-ma, if he has reached the age of 17 years old . . . . The state board of ed-ucation shall prescribe standard proficiency examinations to be adminis-tered."

The graduation requirement goes into effect with the class of 1982.The state board and state department already had task forces of teachers

and school administrators developing a competency based graduation pro-gram at the time of the law's enactment. State education officials appointedan ad hoc committee which recommended that the Stanford AchievementTest be used for the April, 1978, proficiency examinations in grades 3 and 6.Other examinations may be selected or developed in the future.

In the spring and summer of 1978, test item writing groups of teachers andother educators were convened to develop a ninth-grade test to measure skillsin arithmetic and reading, said R. H. Mathers, consultant in technical serviceswith the Nevada Department of Education. An American College Testing(ACT) Program consultant aided in the project.

A pilot test was administered to a sample of more than 1,000 in grade 9 inNovember, 1978. After validity and reliability st Aies, the test will be admin-istered to all ninth-graders in the spring of 1979. Test development costs werepaid from federal Title IV-C funds.

Also in 1978, the department contracted with Educational Testing Serviceto train about 60 teachers across the state in the scoring of writing samples.

"My personal view is that if the ninth-graders pass it (reading and math)they should be exempt from the twelfth-grade test," Mathers said. "There is

a lot of opposition to that. Some want it in the twelfth grade. My answer isthat if you live long enough you forget everything anyway."

He said there probably should be a more advanced writing test for twelfth-graders than the ninth-grade test.

No state remediation funds have been provided. The state departmentplans to ask for $110,000 for test development.

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Tennessee

The Tennessee State Board of Education voted on November 10, 1977,to impose a proficiency test requirement for high school graduation effectivewith the class of 1982. Juniors are to be tested in the spring of 1981 andthose who do not pass the test will have two additional opportunities duringtheir senior year.

The state board also required that local school systems give diagnostictests in grades 4, 5, or 6 and in grade 8. In the spring of 1978, the state pro-vided an eighth-grade basic skills test purchased from a commercial firm andbased on 50 objectives from the Denver proficiency and review test.

The Denver test had been given to a sample of high school seniors in thespring of 1977 as a preliminary step in moving toward a competency testingprogram.

So far, state education officials have had to pull money from existing bud-gets to pay for purchase and scoring of the eighth-grade test. Officials say thereasons for selecting the Denver test include the fact that the test has been ineffect since the early 1 960s and after several years the failure rate has be-come quite low, about 1.5%.

The state board action in November, 1977, and a decision to give aneighth-grade test in the spring put the state education cl...partment in a timeand money bind. "We telt a little frantic about the whole situation," saidJessie Warren, assistant commissioner of education for instructional services.Only enough funds were available to purchase one test for each four students.The short supply of tests caused scheduling problems for many school sys-tems.

A cut-off score of 70% was selected arbitrarily for the four sections of thetest. In the statewide results, 65% of tile eighth-graders scored 70 or above inlanguage, 47% in mathematics, 46% in spelling, and 42% in reading.

Realizing that the testing should be based on learning objectives developedwithin Tennessee, state education officials in 1978 met with groups of teach-ers in the state and came up with 139 objectives. Through a further survey ofsuperintendents and 1,400 teachers, the number of objectives was compressedto 80.

The state board decided that eighth-graders will be tested on 50 of the 80objectives in the spring of 1979 but teachers will not be told which 50. InJanuary, 1979, education officials selected a new eighth-grade diagnostic testfrom a different testing firm. Although little attention has been given so farto the graduation test, it appears it will be just another version of the eighth-grade test.

"Who knows what will happen between now and 1982," Mrs. Warren said."We will have an adequate time to find out what is happening in the courtsand in other states. We need to approach it from the standpoint that whetheror not there is a mandated test for a diploma in 1982, if children are notmastering basic skills we need to look at instructional programs and see whatchanges should be made. Whether or not we have a mandated requirement forgraduation, the efforts have not been in vain. So everyone should not be sodefensive."

Once the graduation test is in effect, the state board plans for local schooldistricts to provide their own eighth-grade tests as well as tests in lower elem-entary grades.

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4 :-

State education officials also have declined to release a state listing of howschool systems score on the eighth-grade test. No state remedial funding isbeing provided in Tennessee.

Kentucky

The Kentucky legislature in 1978 enacted a statewide testing program butthe law has no graduation or promotion requirement based on test scores.

All students in grades 3, 5, 7, and 10 will be given achievement tests inApril and each local school system must develop a plan to aid students thefollowing year in grades 4, 6, 8, and 11.

The state will give criterion-referenced diagnostic tests at the beginning ofgrades 4, 6, 8, and 11 to students who have been identified through theachievement tests as having weaknesses in basic skills.

The local school systems are required to hold public hearings and involvecitizens in developing their plans to aid students, said Donald Van Fleet, headof the office of research and planning for the Kentucky State Department ofEducation. He thinks the Kentucky testing law gives educators more flexi-bility than laws in other states. "The only problem is there is really insuf-ficient money to do a great deal of remediation," he said.

The state is providing $400,000 for testing purposes this year and $1.75million for next year.

The state student assessment section in Florida has a budget this year of$1.3 million. In North Carolina, the minimum competency testing programis costing $164,168 this year and the annual testing program which includestests in other grades is costing $902,858.

The two-year budget for state testing is about $2.6 million in Virginia.The program under the New York State bureau of elementary and second-

ary educational testing is costing about $800,000 this year and there are sometesting costs under other offices. Scoring of tests in N.:w York is done bylocal school systems. Nevada provides $96,000 a year fcr testing in jades 3and 5.

43 4 6'

The Critics

U.S. Commissioner of Education Ernest Boyer says some approaches tominimum competency testing amount to placing "an evaluation time bombat the end" of high school.

Arthur Wise, senior social scientist with the Rand Corporation and a for-mer National Institute of Education (N1E) official, says, "It looks like acheap fix on a serious problem."

Marianne Amarel of Educational Testing Service predicts, "We will see fewif any thoughtful and judiciously implemented minimum competency tests.The omens and portents point to constriction of the curriculum."

Jack Bardon of the University of North Carolina faculty says, "There isan absence of firm data about actual consequences . ... The problem ofminimums becoming maximums is a serious one."

Minimum competency testing draws biting criticism from a number ofeducators, researchers, and sociologists.

Joan C. Baratz, director of Educational Testing Service's Education PolicyResearch Institute in Washington, said, "Minimum competency testing willnot last as a distinct phenomenon any more than performance contracting or'new math' have persisted as central foci of educational change.

"New fads, or at least new terms to describe allegedly basic changes inpractice and procedure, tend to fly through the educational profession, butthey tend also to be short lived."

However, Ms. Baratz is perhaps more moderate in her views than somecritics of minimum competency testing. "There is no cause to believe that theminimum standard craze hurts children any more than what we have beendoing in the past," she said. "Just as it is politically necessary to pass legisla-tion setting standards, so it is politically infeasible to ilave a majority ot stu-dents fail them"

And Boyer said he favors "testing for the right reason at the right time,"although he is opposed to programs which merely place competency tests atthe end of the high school years. "The reason (for testing) is to find outweaknesses of students and the time is in the early grades where they can beaided," he said. "I believe it should occur in the first few grades with every ef-fort to be made to aid those not achieving. Evaluation should be used to keeppeople in school rather than kick them out."

William Spady, an N1E senior research sociologist, said, "We impose test-ing conditions on people as though tests are going to solve problems. We havenot been willing to go off into entertaining a new method of thinking about

44

1 7

solutions and strategies . The whole question people are not asking is whyare we doing all of this testing and what is it we are going to gain." Schoolsshould be organized not around time as now but around "clear outcomes andgoals," he said.

Wise said, "My.view is that there is no decline in achievement. The mostrelevant statistics, from the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Pro-gress) on all 17-year-olds, show that reading and other (skills) have remainedstable since the tests began in 1969. The college board scores have declinedbut they are less relevant to the issue. They cover more advanced skills andare taken only by the top one-th:rd of students.

"In part this has been a media event. The decline of college b-ard seoreswas treated sensationally by the press. This interacted with politicians'natural desire to save taxpayers' money which interacted with Proposition 13and the conservative movement .... I think state legislators took it uponthemselves (to impose competency testing). I don't think the public took itupon themselves to do it."

The minimum competency testing push may backfire on state legislators,he said.

"The state legislature is going to be blamed for the problem. Now they areblaming local school systems but they have made it a state problem and theyget the blame. They (legislators) will not be too happy with this ... .

"People who advocate competency testing obviously believe it is going tomake schools better. I personally believe all it will succeed in doing is dividinghigh school students into two groups. I will grant education has becomesomewhat soft in recent years. I think as a nation we are well on the way tosolving that softness. I think this can occur without competency testing .It (competency testing) distracts. It lets us sit back and say for the next fewyears this is going to be our big push for improving education for the kids.Without trying something else, it will fail . ... The cutting edge question iswhat will be done differently because of this."

Wise said it would be politically impossible to flunk half the students on acompetency test. "I think you wilI, considering you can flunk only 5 to 10%,need a test that is damn easy."

The National Academy of Education committee on testing and basic skillsin a report to tit. assistant secretary of education said:

"The NAE Panel believes that setting of state.vide minimum competencystandards for awarding the high school diplorAa however understandablethe public clamor which has produced the current movement and expectation

is basically unworkable, exceeds the present measurement arts of the teach-ing profession, and will create'more social problems than it can conceivablysolve.

"It is basically unworkable because in many populous states cut-off pointsfor a passing grade that are politically and edlacatively acceptable to parents,pupils, and educators would have to be so low that an overwhelming majorityof students would be allowed to pass. This would make the diploma standardalmost meaningless ... .

"The effori to determine and assure minimum competency standards forhigh school graduation will also fall of its own weight, for the scaffolding ofexisting test designs is tot) weak to carry such an emotionally laden and am-biguous burden. Continuing any extensive efforts and funds in this directionis wasteful and takes attention away from the major tasks of improving ourschools."

45

However, the panel did agree that "a series of standardized tests at thelower grade levels used for diagnosing individual student weaknesses, pin-pointing remediation needs, and building public pressures if schoolwide per-formances in basic skills continue over time to be consistently low, could bepositive influences on student learning."

The federal court suit filed against the Florida functional literacy testingprogram by Bay Area Legal Services, Inc., in Tampa, says Florida has a longhistory of legally enforced segregation and that the state actively resistedschool desegregation. Blacks who are presently vtniors spent part of theirschool years in segregated schools where they received inferior educations,the suit charges. It also says the test was imposed after students had com-pleted more than 10 years of their schooling and that the students were notprovided with instruction and curriculum in all areas covered by the test.

Charges also include that the test is racially biased, that it has not beenproperly validated or checked for reliability, and that there is "no legitimateeducational justification" for using the test to deny regular high school diplo-mas.

Remedial classes have the effect of perpetuating discrimination since theyarc disproportionately black as a result of the numbers of blacks failing thetest, the suit says.

In North Carolina, a field coordinator for the Southern Christian Leader-ship Conference filed a federal suit seeking a temporary restraining order toblock the administration of competency tests in the fall of 1978. However,the suit 'as filed on the first day of testing, too late for any action to betaken before the tests were administered.

NAACP officials and an NAACP education task force are keeping a closeeye on the minimum competency testing program in North Carolina.

"We are going to go along with the test," said Mrs. Willie Mae Winfield,head of the NAACP task force. "We believe in testing but we are going tostudy the results of the test after it is taken and see if it is going to be proper-ly implemented as we have been promised,

"I talked with the governor and state board of education also and theysaid there would be remediation to help each child in what he is weak in. Weare going to work with it as long as it is done properly."

In Florida, a number of black leaders, including NAACP leaders, havecriticized the testing program.

Charles Cherry, state NAACP president in Florida, said, "My basic argu-ment is that the test, written by white people based on their own middle-class white experience, does not reflect the experience of black people."

Robert Travis, president of the Tallahassee NAACP branch, said, "Thelocal branch is not opposed to competency tests in general, ,,asically what wearc opposed to specifically with the Florida test is that it is racially and cul-turally biased. The areas in which they are testing have not been taught inthe high schools, We think it really is just a ruse to keep black kids out ofcollege."

Ron Bailey, head of the political science department at Florida A&M Uni-versity, said, "The way they are doing it, it becomes a new form of slavery,peonage, or separate but equal .. They put you in educable mentallyretarded classes and optional classes and when you gct to the twelfth gradeyou flunk the exam . , , . If you can't get to colic& , you certainly can't get tolaw school and medical school."

46

4.9

The National Education Association and the Florida Teaching Profession(NEA) contracted with an evaluation panel, headed by Ralph Tyler, seniorconsultant with Science Research Associates, to conduct a study of theFlorida testing program.

Among its findings, the panel reported, "It appears as if the current classof eleventh-graders who are black and poor were sacrificed for the purpose ofrapid implementation of the functional literacy segment of the accountabilityact.

"It is evident that there is little active concern for the appropriateness ofthe testing program for a large segment of the school population (the blackand poor),"

The panel said it found the purpose of the Florida Accountability Act tobe praiseworthy.

"However, the strategy adopted in the statewide minimum competencytesting program, with its mandatory standards for receiving a regular highschool diploma, is seriously faulty . .

"A strategy likely to be more effective in improving education in Floridawould have helped schools to identify their particular problems and assistedeach school in developing educational programs designed to attack seriousproblems for that school ,

"The panel also finds the implementation faulty. It appears that the inade-quacies are largely due to excessive haste in instituting the program and fail-ure to make maximum effort to communicate with and involve responsiblyall those who are responsible in making the program work and those who areseriously affected by it."

Tom Innes, director of educational assessment with the Tennessee StateTesting and Evaluation Center in Knoxville, said, "If you ask me to separatethe competent from the incompetent, I would say I don't want to play God.I don't think measurement can do that. No test can be devised that willseparate them. And the people who say that they can are speaking more ofhope than they are of experience. I think competency-based education maybe OK and competency testing for instructional improvement may be OK,It's been made too much of, I think."

Paul Smith, senior researcher with the Children's Defense Fund in Wash-ington, said states do not have the money to devise tests which are up to Edu-cational Testing Service standards and ETS does not have a market largeenough to invest in development of such tests. There would have to be a dif-ferent test for each state.

"There is that subtle difference between an admissions test (the SAT,ACT) and an emissions test (a graduation competency test)," said Smith."The purpose of an admissions test is a single standard. The purpose of anemissons test is for each community to determine what constitutes minimumcompetency,"

476v,

The Supporters

Minimum competency testing has led to "kids buckling down and gettingserious about their school work," North Carolina and Florida education of-ficials said.

"We've had a genuinely positive reaction throughout the state," said Wil-liam Brown, director of research for the North Carolina Department of PublicInstruction.

"The kids had picked up the notion they did not have to achieve much togo from grade to grade. Several years of lowered expectations have resulted inkids doing less. With this year's raised expectations, the kids are doing more.

"The remedial program for some youngsters will be quick and rathersimple. For others, it will take the full two years (before graduation) to getthem up to standard. I really don't expect many children not to pass."

Thomas Fisher, director of student assessment with the Florida Depart-ment of Education, said, "Students clearly learn what they ate supposed tolearn and they do it. The indication we have is that the challenge is well re-ceived by the students.

"I think it has created something of an instant revolution, particularly insecondary education to the benefit of the students. I think we are giving thema golden opportunity. It seems we are putting every creative effort into help-ing students who have been passed along before ....

"We are not testing to fail students. We are testing to determine if our stu-dents have mastered functional math and communications skills. For thosestudents in need of additional work to attain these skills, we will provide ad-ditional assistance so they can eventually be able to pass the test."

Fisher said charges that the test is racially discriminatory are not valid."It discriminates between people who can read and those who can't. It

discriminates between those who can count and those who can't," he said.He said the state went to great efforts to develop the learning objectives

and the tests, including wide involvement of local school districts, field test-ing, and revisions.

"The heat and the controversy (about the testing program) have comefrom outside the State of Florida," he said. "I can't think of a single news-paper in Florida that has come out and said it is a bad idea ... .

"The issue is going to be very hotly discussed and debated this year. Ithink this is gooe Out of it is going to come a commitment from the stateone way or the other, a commitment to go ahead or drop it. It will be a bene-ficial operation whichever way it goes. It has created more public debate onschools and the content of education than has ever taken place before. Thatcan't help but be good."

48 it)

W. E. Campbell, Virginia's state superintendent of public instruction, sup-ports minimum competency testing.

"Public education needs something to restore public confidence," Camp-bell said. "Public education is almost pricing itself out of business in manylocalities. I think if the people involved in public education will recognize thevalues inherent in competency-based education, we vill restore public educa-tion to the eminence which it should enjoy.

"Unfortunately, I do not believe the organized teachers associations haverecognized this fact. I am not talking about the organizations of teachers onlybut principals, supervisors, superintendents, and so on. They show indica-tions of still not fully understanding the seriousness of the situation with re-spect to the American pullic. I think we had better recognize the seriousnessof the situation and give our full attention to the teaching-learning situation.

"I don't know of any other way in which we are going to have evidencethat young people finishing our schools possess the necessary knowledge andskills to live a happy and successful life and contribute to the betterment ofsociety. We've got a golden opportunity. I hope we don't drop the ball."

North Carolina Governor James B. Hunt has been a major force behindthe adoption of a competency testing program in his state.

"Our decision was that we ought not to let any more students graduatewithout minimum competency," Hunt said. "I think the diploma today with-out skills really doesn't much good.

"We are identifying weaknesses. We are then going to remediate theseweaknesses. It may be a little tough on the eleventh-graders this year but it isbetter to find their weaknesses now than to perpetrate a fraud ....

"I am prepared to ask for whatever (remedial funding) we really need. Iam talking about focusing money directly on the students who do not passthe test. If I did not believe we could remediate, I would not be in favor ofthe tests."

Arthur Hertz, a Miami businessman who heads the Greater Miami Chamberof Commerce's new education quality action committee, strongly endorsesthe testing approach.

"It (the quality of education) has gotten to the point where businesspeople have to take some action," he said. "We are getting a very poorproduct."

Ken Robinson, a parent and vice chalfman of the Dade County (Miami)school system's community citizens advisory committee, said, "I think it issensational. Nothing should be done to water down the effectiveness of thetest. I don't think a child should be able to graduate without being able tofunction in the world."

The Florida testing program "is working out very wail " said Mrs. Barbaraaeck, recording secretary with the Dade County PTA Council.

"In the past the high school graduation certificate didn't mean much andnow we are asking not only the students to be accountable but the teachersas well."

Scott D. Thomson, deputy executive director of the National Associationof Secondary School Principals, thinks the shift to minimum competencytesting looks like a bigger change now than it will in retrospect.

"It's not going to require that much in the way of resources and man-power in the long run," Thomson said.

"That's why I say I think in five years people are going to say in retro-spect. 'What was all the shouting about? We are doing it. The kids are by and

49

large passing the tests. They are going to remedial classes. Sure we have hadto hire another remedial teacher but that wasn't that big a dear."

James Gallagher of the Frank Porter Grahai Center, a multi-disciplinarychild research center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill andhead of the North Carolina Minimum Competency Testing Commission says,"We are talking about competency testing as if somehow it is some oddanimal that has come out of the woods and there is nothing like it in educa-tion," he said.

"The truth of the matter is there is hardly anthing it is more like thanmost of the education decision making that i; done."

A National School Boards Association survey in 1978 showed that 76% ofschool board presidents think every public school student should be requiredto master certain skills and 76% believe every student should be required topass a minimum competency test in order to receive a high school diploma.

A majority of the board presidents oppose any nationwide, federally de-vised test and believe that control of testing should remain at the local level,the survey showed.

50

Teachers and TeacherOrganizations Respond

New York State United Teachers (AFT) has endorsed the concept of stu-dents demonstrating minimum levels of proficiency and has said that "ade-quately developed" basic competency tests are effective means of determin-ing the minimum levels of achievement obtained.

The teachers union has called for funding of remediation programs andopposes the use of test resqlts and statistics as the measure of school effec-tiveness.

New York Educators Association (NEA), has "agreed there should be stan-dards but where they should be set is another story," said Ms. Pat Orrange,the state association's coordinator of professional services.

"There isn't enough money (provided) for remediation for the young-sters," she said. "We firmly believe that remediation can't begin in the ninthgrade. We are against it (minimum competency testing) if the state or districthas not provided remedial instruction. What we are saying is the bucks betterbe there."

The Tennessee Education Association has called for an overall plan to im-prove proficiency in basic skills before students graduate from high schoolbut opposes any plan that would deny a high school diploma to a student onthe basis of performance on a single proficiency test.

A TEA official said the state board of education's plan for minimal compe-tency testing is a "dangerously oversimplistic proposal to solve a very com-plex problem."

The Florida Education Association/United (AFT) has criticized aspects ofFlorida's testing approach and has supported a delay in implementing the re-quired examination.

However, Eileen H. Arpke, an Okaloosa County English teacher and presi-dent of the Florida Council for Teachers of English, has endorsed the testingprogram as "the most constructive and educationally supportive move towardan educated populace that we have had in 20 years."

During a state task force hearing in Panama City, Arpke said, "Graduationfrom high school should mean that the basic keys to knowledge are in thehands of the graduate for whatever purpose he wishes to use them. Every pro-spective employer, upper-level academic institution, and student shoull befully aware of the skill levels guaranteed by the successful complet Jn of highschool and award of the diploma.

"We as educators are less than honest to award a diploma or promote achild who has not mastered the basic skills for each grade level."

51

Jean Dyson, a twelfth-grade English teacher at John F. Kennedy HighSchool in Richmond, Virginia, has mixed feelings about minimum compe-tency testi

"It gives us a focus," she said. "We know specifically some of the goals weshould be preparing students to reach. It haP motivated the students, giventhem goals, uniform goals for all of our schools.

"But it is causing us to spend so much time preparing students for the te:A.There is constant interference with scheduling."

Marianna Minter, another English teacher at the school, said, "We haven'thad a checkpoint at the tenth-grade level. Without it, the entire burden fallson the twelfth-grade teachers for remediation. For some students who missedsome experiences in the past, we had to prepare them strenuously for thecompetency test and we missed a lot of other things that are important."

Virginia Lewis, head of the school's English department, said, "All of ushave mixed feelings. There will be some good outcomes. It has some limita-tions. I know that one test will never be able to accurately assess a student."

52 5.:

The School Scene

Principals tend to ,apport minimum competency testing while teachersand students express cd feelings.

Harold Knott, principal of Miami's Killian High School, said, "It is defi-nitely making young people aware of the fact they have got to learn somebasic skills in order to get a diploma. I believe we see considerably more ef-fort and work on the part of students to learn."

Richard M. Jewell, principal of Broughton High School in Raleigh, NorthCarolina, said an emphasis on basic skills has to start somewhere. "I think asa whole teachers, the community, everyone realizes that we have got to getback to the basics, the standards."

Mike Conley, principal at Leon High School in Tallahassee, praises thestate's testing program but he also sees a few problems. "We like it," he said."It has created a little more serious attitude among students toward schoolwork. They are sort of under the gun. But there have been problems. Therewas not enough lead time in preparation for the students. The eleventh-gradeclass is the one suffering.

"We had the twelfth or thirteenth highest score in the state. It is not asbig a problem to us as at other schools which have a different socio-economicbackground. The test itself is comparatively easy. My only concern is that somany students walk out and say this is ridiculous, it's so easy."

J. W. Bailey, assistant principal at Rickards High in Tallahassee, said theschool's teachers are supportive of the tests. "It is not an unreasonable thingto ask Kids to be able to do. From an administrative standpoint, it gives usthe first toehold to try to make sure of some minimum performance of stu-dents after they leave here. It gives us something to shoot for."

Herman Carter, principal of John F. Kennedy High School in Richmond,Virginia, said students have ta.. mature approach to competency testing.They are not rebelling against it, ' he said. "They missed something some-

where and have accepted that fact and are trying to do something about it."Randy Godsel, a senior at Mosley High School in Bay County (Panama

City), Florida, exemplified the frustration of some students as he testified be-fore a state task force in Florida. "There is too much time span between re-medial work and taking the test again," Randy said. "To be a senior in highschool and know you may not get your diploma .. .. When you have to livewith something all summer, it is bad. You have your parents onto you allthe time." He was almost in tears. Maurice Thomas, 18, a student at Bay

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County's Rutherford High School, said he had "been hitting the books dayand night" in an effort to pass the test. "I am a senior with 12 years of schooland there is a question of whether I am going to pass or not," he said. "I amunder pressure as a student. I think the pressure ought to be on the teach-ers." At one point in his elemental y years, Maurice was incorrectly placed ina special education class.

Joyce Young, 17, a senior at Leon High School in Tallahassee who passedthe test, said, "I thought it was a waste of time. It was on a low level. I feelyou need a higher grade of education than that to graduate from highschool."

However, Rebecca Macon, 16, a Leon High junior, said, "I feel it is unfairbecause really it is a surprise to eleventh-graders. For the basic students in thebasic classes, it really is a big problem to cope with the test.

"Since the test has come up, I think a lot of kids are dropping out ofschool because they know they are going to fail it. If you go to school for 12years and they are not going to give you a diploma, just a ce.tificate, I don'tthink that is right. I have been too many years in school for them just to giveme a certificate telling me how many days I have been in school."

At John F. Kennedy High in Richmond, Michael Newly, 15, a junior,said, "The diploma means more so I am glad."

Karl Golding, 17, a junior, had a similar viewpoint. "I like to know where Istand in my grades and knowledge."

Andrea Miles, 17, and Elizabeth Pankey, 17, said preparation for the test istaking too much time away from their other classwork.

And Lisa Bomar, 17, a senior, said, "It makes me think about what thesystem is about. You have to go 12 years and then you have to take a test. Ihave been here for 12 years and have got to take the test. The 12 years werefor nothing really. It looks like the system is flawed somewhere."

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The Federal Scene

Some members of Congress have called for nationwide testing. However,administration officials strongly believe that education is essentially a stateand local function and that it would be an unwise expansion of federal in-fluence to establish a national testing program.

However, Congress did include in the renewed Elementary and Second-ary Education Act an authorization for the U.S. Commissioner of Educa-tion to make grants to states or local school systems if they desire to developeducational proficiency standards.

A state may apply for a grant or local school systems may apply in stateswhere the state does not submit an application.

One of the requirements of the law is that assurances must be made thatany students failing any examinations under the plan must be provided ad-ditional instruction in the subject area failed.

Grants may also be inade to state and local educational agencies to assistin development of achievement testing in basic skills.

The National Institute of Education is planning a four-year study on theimpact of minimum competency testing programs.

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Conclusion

The major strength of minimum competency testing programs to thispoint appears to be the identification of specific learning objectives for stu-dents, particularly in elementary grades.

The effe6t of high school graduation tests is unclear. However, it appearsthat legal and political considerations likely will prevent any massive denial ofhigh school diplomas based on competency test scores.

The full impact upon education is still clouded in uncertainty. One of themajor questions is whether an emphasis on basic skills and competency test-ing will provide improved education for marginal and below-average studentswithout limiting the variety and depth of instruction for higher achievingstudents.

So far, neither the worst fears of minimum competency testing critics northe highest hopes of tbsting supporters have become reality.

Richard Hinds, consultant for measurement and evaluation for the DadeCounty, Florida, school system, has some of the mixed feelings express-ed by many about minimum competency testing.

He thinks the Florida graduation test should probably have been adminis-tered for two years before being made a requirement.

"The state department and everybody else thinks it (the test) was broughtdown by Moses. It wasn't. A lot of people take test scores very seriously. I amafraid probably that the public takes the scores more seriously than theyshould and teachers take the scores less seriously than they should.

"I think in the long run the effect is going to be beneficial. In the longhaul, American education will accommodate this program just as it has otherpractices."

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